DejaVu
by Alpha DragonWulf
Summary: Previously titled Something New. Deja-Vu: The experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously, though the details are unclear. What if you have, but you can't remember? 'o7-verse, onesided Frenzy-OC
1. Prologue: Osilon Virus

**A/N2: I HAVE CHANGED THE TITLE AND SUMMARY BUT NOTHING ELSE!!!!! I got tired of calling this Something New, especially when one of my freinds mentioned that a better title would be 'Deja-Vu', considering it's prevalance in the story. Lo, I change the name. Enjoy!**

* * *

**Deja-Vu**

**The Osilon Virus**

* * *

Pain. So much pain.

One would think you would grow used to it after millennia of war and fighting, of having limbs ripped off and plasma shots hitting your chassis, but no pain ever compares to that of what one who has just realized he had lost everything that ever matters, even his own identity.

He had remembered at the sight of the hulking Autobot leader tackling one of his fellow Decepticons off the side of a highway overpass. Only Bonecrusher should've felt that pain, but it was shared by a Dodge Charger for an entirely different reason.

It had been so bad that Barricade – though dimly he knew there was another designation that was supposed to be assigned to him - had to pull off of the highway, abandoning the chase towards the human city of Mission.

Systems blocked for thousands of years were coming back online; a virus charging through his systems was trying to reestablish it's cancerous hold on his CPU. Logic flowed back into his consciousness, Primus-Blessed logic. With it came more pain, though, and though he would later remember the moment and wonder what happened, Barricade – though that wasn't his designation, was it? – transformed, clawing at his chassis over his spark, and screamed, screamed so loud it set off car alarms for miles around.

o:o:o:o:o:o

_His designation: Prowl. The black and white mech had always been a law enforcer, even before the Great War had started. He still was, only now, he was also the second in command to the Prime, and the tactician. _

_And the aft of 47 percent of the pranks the four twins in the Autobase pulled._

_This time it was the melee demons, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. He recognized their handiwork- only they would paint his desk all over with Decepticon symbol in different colors, and rig a bucket to dump metal shavings and glue to dump all over him. Then again, the annoying song set to loop on the speakers in his quarters seemed more like a Jazz and Beat kind of thing. Either way, a set of twins was going to be on cleaning duty for the next three orns._

_:_o:o:o:o:o:

_It had been a long battle. Both sides had many casualties, but the Decepticons were coming out on top, and the once beautiful city of Vos was now in ruin. Prowl had been shot through both legs with a hot plasma round, and a red seeker – Starscream, he remembered through the pain and haziness of energon-loss – had hit him with a higher-level null ray blast that left him unable to even fight from the position where he was._

_A big purple cycloptic mech approached Prowl, pulling an uplink cable from his wrist-port. The odds were not good; Prowl calculated only a thirty-eight percent survival, and that was if he could actually fight back in his state. But as he couldn't there was barely eight percent that he would survive the torture-master's treatment._

_The cable was plugged directly into the back of Prowl's helm, and then there was pain even more than what he had ever experienced. A single message flashed in front of his optics before he went into emergency stasis._

_**Warning: Osilon.8 upload complete.**_

o:o:o:o:o:o

_Lord Megatron had been missing for hundreds of vorns. Barricade was selected by Soundwave and Shockwave (whom he detested for some illogical reason) to be one of the landing party to follow the faint ion trail of Lord Megatron along with Bonecrusher, Brawl, Blackout and his symbiote Skorponock, and the traitorous 2IC, Starscream. Barricade didn't respect Starscream, for more reasons than the rest of the Decepticons, even though he didn't know why. Each had a quality needed; His was high logic, though he didn't often use it._

_They had been ready to enter protoform mode and be launched from the planet they were temporarily located, when Barricade was approached by Soundwave._

_"__**Frenzy: Eject."**__ he had said in that monotone voice of his. Barricade actually liked Soundwave more than any other Decepticon, partially because he was so cruel, and partially because he used logic so much. Barricade couldn't figure out why, but he liked that._

_Anyways, Frenzy hopped out of Soundwave's chassis compartment and onto the larger mech's shoulder plate. Barricade was confused, and as Soundwave was telepathic, there was no need for a question._

_**"Mission addition: Frenzy to accompany Barricade on search for Lord Megatron. Confirmation?" **_

_Obviously it had been discussed before, and Barricade knew it was no use to argue with the communications officer, so he and Frenzy just nodded._

_"__**You will protect Frenzy with your life, Barricade,"**__ said Soundwave as menacingly as the monotone could convey, __**"Repercussions will take it otherwise."**_

_**"I'll protect the little scrap, telepath, just let me do my job,"**__ replied Barricade, and though the answer was rude, Soundwave telepathically uplinked to Barricade's CPU and transferred all data regarding Frenzy directly. _

_The partners were now ready for departure._

:o:o:o:o:o:

_Primus, but his little brother was annoying. _

_Where Prowl relied totally on logic and things making sense, it seemed that Bluestreak solely operated on talking._

_Hence the name Bluestreak._

_Bluestreak was much younger than his elder sibling, and because of the fact that their framework designs were so close they were sometimes mistaken for creator and created. Prowl often wondered why their creator, Custody, couldn't have been logical and chosen a different frame for his second creation, but it had been his wish that both of his creation's be in the police force, just like him._

_But then he had went and been reckless, illogically charging into battle during an ordinary call to a drunken riot without an electric shield. His death, thankfully, had been quick, so he suffered little._

_But that still left Prowl, a young mech that was the top in his force, taking care of Bluestreak, who was barely into his youngling stages. And he never stopped talking, not even in recharge._

_Primus, but his little brother was annoying._

o:o:o:o:o:o

The memories flashed in front of Prowl/Barricade's optics, which, if anyone could have seen them, would've been pulsating between red and blue. The fragments came in no particular order and made very little sense, but the Decepticon/Autobot knew they were theirs- his.

Then, with a jolt, the Prowl side of the mech's CPU, the one that was becoming more dominant without the virus twisting it, realized that Frenzy was missing. And it remembered making a promise as Barricade, that he would protect the hacker with his spark.

Turning on the sirens hastily, the hurting mech pealed back to the Hoover Dam.

--

With his siren on, it took only a few Earth minutes to make the fifty mile trip back to the impressive concrete structure (he had been going about ten times the legal limit, and while Prowl was cringing, the virus that created Barricade was also making him enjoy it WAAY too much.) and even less to break back into the dam. With the logic becoming less blocked every klik in the virus addled CPU of the mech, the job was, as the humans called it, 'easy as pie'.

(That phrase almost made the mech fritz out as soon as he used it. Slagged illogical humans.)

It didn't take long to find Frenzy- or what was left of him. The poor bot's head had been severed nearly in two, and the human's had left him in the middle of the floor, but thankfully (or Prowl/Barricade would never have found him) the failsafe device on Frenzy's spark-nodes had activated in time to feed his spark and CPU info to other caches in the casseticon's body.

But that isn't to say that Frenzy was in good shape; He was in stasis lock and only a few wires were holding his cranial unit in one piece. And at seeing Frenzy like that jarred the defense Prowl/Barricade had put up around his CPU to block the memories that were assaulting him; Frenzy was too much like them…

:o:o:o:o:o:

_In a row in his office sat four younglings, two sets of twins, known about the Autobase as the 'Fearsome Four'. Not because they worked together, but because when the 'Terrible Twosome' and the 'Musical Menaces' had their prank wars, no one was safe. _

_And that is what had brought them to Prowl's office that orn. Apparently they had gotten together and tricked Ironhide into setting off a complex prank that included half of the recreation room being blown sky high, Ratchet, Ironhide, Optimus Prime and a few other officers being painted purple and orange, and the whole base rigged to a tune that consisted of hacking frequencies that kept anyone from using their commlinks at risk of being forced to say everything backwards. Several 'bots were already speaking gibberish._

_The 'Terrible Twosome's' designations were Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, and no matter what, they were always dangerous- or either homicidal or going to prank again. The 'Musical Menaces' were named Jazz and Beat, and were only dangerous if bored, cut off from Bluestreak, the other twins, the other younglings, or Bumblebee, or if they had sudden inspiration. Usually not as dangerous as the Terrible Twosome, but when combined, or in a prank war? _

_Well, then the war with the Decepticons was the least of the Autobot's problems._

_That brought Prowl back to the younglings in his office, who, to credit them, were looking like they were having the times of their life._

_**"Are you four aware of why you are here?"**__ Began Prowl, starting off their hearing._

_**"Oh! I know! I know! Because you're a prick that hates seeing innocent younglings have fun?"**__ Sideswipe._

_**"Nah, man, 'ts cuz Prowl'r has no 'spec' f'r our 'tistic 'bilities!"**__ Cackled Jazz, and his twin gave him a victorious 'high four'. Prowl could feel his battle computer fritz. Primus, he hated these twins, especially the younger set. They were just so... illogical! At least Bluestreak usually made sense when he blabbered on!_

_**"Would you for once be serious!"**__ Shouted Prowl in the middle of four sets of laughter. __**"The reason you four are here is because you have possibly caused the biggest non-war related disaster Cybertron has ever seen!"**_

_Beat waved a hand nonchalantly.__** "Psh. N'b'dy died. 'S no' like we blew up Opt'mus, righ'?"**_

_**"You put half of the army into the medbay, and five mechs are going to be in stasis lock for the next three orns. Additionally, Perceptor and Wheeljack are going to be extracting those 'sparkles' from the whole base's interior for several weeks! And you all know it is horrible when inside a mech's intakes, which of course, they are. You are only lucky you thought to take Bumblebee with you to your hiding spot, else every Autobot in the base would want your helms even more so for hurting him. What do you four have to say for yourselves before I put you on cleanup duty and in the brig for the next five vioures?"**_

_There was a quick glance exchanged between the younglings._

_**"Yeah. How 'bout 'dis,"**__ said Beat with an evil smile, glancing at the most unstable of the group._

_**"Shove it up your aft and twist!"**__ Yelled Sunstreaker vehemently, shoving his finger in the air for emphasis._

_It took Prowl about three breems to drag the Fearsome Four down to the brig. As he left, he heard four voices in perfect sync._

_**"We regret **_**NOTHING!!**_**"**_

o:o:o:o:o:o

_Prowl was reading a datapad that had a report on it. Not that he needed to, he had written it himself, and had been re-reading it for the past few breems. He was doing it absently as he pondered the report._

_The report itself was on the flurried whispers of war that were cropping up everywhere. As the head of the Vos Peace Corps, Prowl was obligated to make sure that any rumors, even if that was all they were, were stopped. As he had to do that along with being the strategist for hostage situations and also had normal officer duties, Prowl was a very busy mech. Not that he minded, in fact, the only way he could function properly was with something to do._

_But once again, among all of the datapads on the desk, Prowl's CPU kept straying back to the one detailing the murmurings of war. Apparently, if the rumors were anything to go by, the Lord High Protector, Megatron, who just happened to be the older co-creation of the Matrix Bearer, Optimus Prime, was planning a revolt, to create a 'better Cybertron'. The next part of the report was... illogical. Megatron wanted all seekers, flyers, fighters and protectorate-class mechs to receive immunity status, and all other Cybertronians were to serve them?_

_Where did that leave the mechs and femmes in the middle? Prowl's whole family-unit was constructed as protectorate-class 'bots, but many of Prowl's acquaintances and friends were shopkeepers, or communications workers, or some such job as that. Megatron was apparently suggesting a ruthless army, dominating all of Cybertron. Though it was all rumor, Prowl ran every possible outcome in his battle computer._

_52 percent of all Cybertronians reporting this were protectorate class. 89 percent were mechs. 2 percent were inebriated. 24 percent read about underground fighting rings every morning. 11 percent were low on energy. 52 percent worked high-class jobs. 66 percent attended or fought in the underground fighting matches. .15 percent had a history of mental illness. And one, only one mech, had commed in anonymously, claiming to belong to this group that was forming, the Decepticons. Also, since the orn before, when he had began working on the case, 79.86 percent of all incoming data streams to Prowl's personal net-link datapad were threats to be carried out if he did not discontinue studying these 'Decepticons'. The factors went on and on._

_As he buried his cranial unit in his hands, Prowl ran all data through his CPU one more time before sending the resulting data directly to the Prime himself._

_Probability of 'Decepticon' rebels actually existing and forming an army: 89.8234165623-infinite percent. Enough to cause major concern about them. And while Prowl was not religious, he couldn't help but mutter a prayer to Primus._

:o:o:o:o:o:

_**"DADDY!"**_

_Prowl was holding his distraught younger sibling. He had just received a call from his commanding officers that his creator was injured and that he should pick up Bluestreak from the youngling center he was at and proceed to the scene as soon as possible._

_The 'scene', as he had called it, looked like something out of a cheap, gory horror holo-vid. _

_There was energon spattered all over the bar, still fresh and glowing. Already dulling mech bodies were strewn across the floor with smoldering holes from plasma pistols littering their surfaces. Every chair, table and counter was damaged in some way, mostly by having been smashed into thousands of small metal pieces._

_And off to the side, laying brokenly, was their creator, or what was left of him, in a pool of his own mech fluids._

_As the sniper-in-training sobbed over their creator's corpse, Prowl surveyed what had been done. Cause of death: A shard of his spark chamber breaking off and impaling his spark. Other damage: his chevron was torn off and missing, his left doorwing was torn off, an energon dagger wound to the left side of the cranial unit, and there was a huge, jagged slit down the middle of his abdomen plating. Half of the damage was post-mortem._

_Suddenly, Bluestreak burst out, hitting his older brother weakly in the chassis._

_**"Pwowl! Bwing Daddy back! I pwomise I'll be good, I'll work hard and be a good shootew and I'll stop talking all the time just pwese bwing back Daddy becaws we can't be hewe wifout him we need Daddy! Pwese! Pwese,"**__ he sobbed, and his not-yet-overcome speech impediment-glitch made his begging even more piteous, adding to the fact that his large blue optics were streaming out cleaner fluid._

_For the first time in a long time, Prowl felt something other than annoyance for his brother, and something more than the cool façade of nothing he normally had - Sadness? Greif? Pity? Anger? - and pulled Bluestreak close._

_**"I'm sorry Bluestreak. I wish I could, but Father is gone. Look at me," **__Prowl said softly, turning his sibling's face up to look at his own. "__**Your guardians at the youngling center may have told you this, but I will tell you again. The leader of Cybertron, Optimus Prime, is the bearer of the Matrix. It is the resting place of all sparks, the utopia that we return to when we offline. While the Allspark houses all sparks to be created and designates such things such as spark partners and what creator deserves a creation, the Matrix is where the sparks come from, and where they all go when they extinguish. I cannot do anything more for Father, as he had rejoined the Matrix, and is with Primus."**__ Though it pained Prowl to say it, the religious outlook o that made Bluestreak feel better, and he pulled away from Prowl to face their creator._

_**"I'm gonna miss you, Daddy, but you'll be happy in the oo-toh-pee-a, wight? Pwese don't forget us, Daddy. I wove you,"**__ said Bluestreak sadly, patting their creator's corpse. A lower ranking officer tapped Prowl on the shoulder plating._

_**"I'm sorry to bother you sir, but in your creator's legal statements he wrote that you are to be the official caretaker of Bluestreak. Shall I arrange for other plans for the youngling?"**_

_Prowl looked over at Bluestreak, who was shaking quietly with grief, and then narrowed his optics at the officer. _

_**"No. If that was Custody's wish, then that will be followed through." **_

"_**Sir, you can't do your duties if-" **__Prowl held up a hand coldly to silence the mech._

_**"Do not oppose me, or I will mention your insubordinate actions as family-unit interference to the chief. Understood?"**_

_The officer nodded quickly and ran off as Prowl wrapped an arm around Bluestreak again._

o:o:o:o:o:o

The police-mech sat up 'drunkenly', wiping energon out from under his scent-receptor plating.

Erg.

So many memories, all at the same time! And each of them brought back a part that had been suppressed for hundreds of vioures, a part that was the _real_ him.

Wasn't it?

At the very least, Prowl/Barricade's logic was back at full capacity, and it allowed him to approach the situation with Frenzy better.

While neither Prowl nor Barricade had undergone thorough medical training, both knew basic field repair, so he gathered all the smallest earth-metal scraps and an old welder off a table in the back of the archive room.

Quickly he set to work, carefully doing enough of a patch up job that the small Decepticon's self repair systems would fix him up to livable status again. Though it took about four of the earthling's ridiculously fast orns to actually patch up Frenzy's cranial unit, (though it would have been a shorter amount of time without all of the memories bombarding his CPU every few cycles), it took about half an hour after the self repair finished working for the spindly cassette to reboot. During that week long period, 'Barricade' weakened quite substantially. It was still there, just barely, however. The persona stayed, a nagging virus in the corner of Prowl's CPU, what the humans called a 'devil on the shoulder', but slightly worse, making him crave going out and terrorize the 'squishies' and such. Finally, however, Frenzy rebooted.

"C-C-caaadde?" Was the first thing that the small mech vocalized. Prowl almost winced, mentally recoiling at the name.

"Please do not call me that, Frenzy." Frenzy nodded.

"Y-yeah, s-s-sure, Bbbarr-ricadde."

The black and white, identity-crisis-suffering mech shook his cranial unit violently before transforming and opening his passenger side door, allowing the small hacker to get in.

--

How long they drove around for, Prowl didn't know. His internal chronometer read about ten days, but, illogically, it felt as though it were eight centuries. During that time, however, Prowl managed to somehow regain possession of his own sanity. The only thing left to do was figure out what happened. And, being the second in command of the Autobots for about a third of his life didn't count for nothing.

--

"B-b-barric-cade? You've b-beennn ac-acting really weird since you-you fixxxed mme. Wha-ats up," asked Frenzy with uncharacteristic tact on the ninth straight day of driving aimlessly around the country. He hadn't mentioned about how his partners optics had turned blue, or how they had to stop every so often as Barricade 'glitched out', or how when his partner recounted the events after his demise he had seemed cool and logical, and almost kind of happy, but this was the time, as Barricade had removed the Decepticon sigil from his doors, so he brought it up tentatively. The large mech's answer seemed to change the subject, however.

"Do you recall the terms under which I joined the Decepticon Army under Lord Megatron?"

Frenzy seemed to do what the humans would consider 'sweat-dropping'. "N-n-no. Dddidnnt you join u-up in Pra-praxu-uss? Befor-ore the Global Outbreak?"

"Not according to the files I have. According to these, I didn't join until the second battle of Vos. Why do you say Praxus," asked Barricade coolly. Of course he had no such files, but he took advantage of his interrogation skills and memories to try and get the truth. And, as Prowl had predicted, the jittery hacker became completely still before resetting his optics.

"D-d-do you remem-member Be-eat, the saba-abateur?"

"Yes, she was a very skilled femme, in sneaking around, hacking, and close combat. Why do you bring her up? She was just a youngling," replied Prowl.

"Not ju-st a younggliing. Sh-eee st-arted the test phphphases for one of the biggesst projectts of the Decep-decepticon cause. She had oririginally beeen aan Autobo-ot. You mi-ight no-ot remem-member, but she-she wasss tha-at now-dead auto-autoscum Ja-azz's younger twitwin. Spa-ark twitwin," said Frenzy carefully. "She-e became the fififirst subject to sucsuccessfully-eee incorpe-ra-tteee the Osi-osilon Vivirusss and live."

Prowl smirked inwardly, Decepticon programming showing for a fraction of a second._ Now _they were getting somewhere. "And what exactly is the Osilon Virus?"

Cringe from Frenzy. "The Osilo-on Vi-virus wa-as ussedd to forci-forcibly converrrt Auto-autobotsss a-and Neu-neutra-als inttto De-ecepticocon's. It rewrottte the-ir mainfra-ames and en-encoding, a-and usually incre-creased their power levvvells by ababout te-en percent, th-though i-it alssso drdrdrained their processssing ababilitities subsubstantially. It alssso pu-ut thththe subjeject into sta-a-asis lockkk long en-enough for ththe Constructiticons to rebuild the-them into a more fitting fo-orm. Then the-ey wouldd be onli-lined aft-err beinng reprogrammed wi-ith nnnew pa-asts."

"Did that not create tension between the new and old troops?" Throughout the 'conversation' (interrogation?) Frenzy had gotten more and more anxious, almost, the modified charger thought pensively, like a young sparkling that had accidently killed his sibling's pet petro-rabbit and was trying, and failing, to keep it a secret.

"N-no. Pa-art of the plann Lo-orddd Mega-egatron came up wi-ith. I hackcked into other mech's systememems wi-ith the he-elp of Sounddwave a-and impla-a-aanted correctct backgroundinfo-fo. The viru-us waas flawless, u-up tooo a poin-oint, because of the wayayay tha-at 'Scream-mer, Soundwa-ave, me an' Mega-egatro-on desi-igned i-it," responded Frenzy.

"At what point did the virus break, Frenzy," asked Prowl, resolving it was his last question as he already had all the information he needed.

Frenzy's optics darted around the interior of the car nervously before he answered. "A severerere, comple-ete situ-ituation where you kno-ow you areare abou-out to offliine wiiith no doubt, ororor wha-at humans ca-all 'déjà vu'. On the ba-atlefeilddd the sububjects tha-at broke freeee we-ere killed instantly be-ecause of the pai-ain, a-and our CPU's ke-eep déjà vu to-oo thehe bare mininimum."

"Thank you for your cooperation, Frenzy. I believe you have been asking to go to a human amusement park, so I will take you." Prowl gave a thrum of his internal systems.

"Why diiid yo-ou need tototo kno-ow allll thi-is, 'Cade?" Frenzy's voice wavered from the fear he held for he already knew the answer.

Prowl pulled to a stop on the deserted back road, let Frenzy out, and transformed.

"Your virus, as you have already told me, is not perfect. I know now that I was infected with it, but have broken free." Prowl shifted slightly, trying to adjust the 'doorwings' that just weren't there anymore. He continued. "I was being used as a tool as Decepticon Barricade, but you know as well as I do, that I am truly Autobot Prowl, second in command and tactical officer under Optimus Prime. Correct?" Frenzy just nodded quickly, and flinched, and Prowl took notice.

"I am a mech of integrity, Frenzy. I have regained my memories, and keep all of my old ones. Do not think that I have forgotten the promise I made to Soundwave vioures ago. I will take you to the humans' amusement park known as Six Flags, and then I will return you to the Decepticons, safely. Now please, I will not hurt you now when I could've done it when I was Barricade," Prowl said, and Frenzy calmed down enough to climb into Prowl when he transformed.

--

The next eight days were spent at both Six Flags and traveling back across the country towards California. Other than a slight mishap involving Frenzy, too much coffee, and his shurikins in the amusement park, everything was okay. Somehow, Prowl managed to even sneak up to Starscream in recharge and instruct Frenzy to lay on his chassis until he awoke, giving him enough time to get away.

Getting back with the Autobots was a quite different challenge, however.

--

The Autobots had set up base in the Hoover Dam after clearing it out. Though Prowl knew he was, logically, going to be shot on sight, he walked up to the 'hidden' entranceway, guarded by some humans, and-just his luck- Ironhide.

Before Ironhide could even draw his cannons, Prowl was on the ground, legs in the lotus position, head tilted up, and hands twisted up on his chassis so they pointed towards his spark, thumbs out. The Cybertronian surrender sign.

Ironhide, of course, would have none of it, and just as Prowl had predicted, shot him, rendering him in stasis lock.

--

The next thing Prowl knew, his systems were rebooting.

**Stasis Lock disengaged.**

As his optics rebooted, Prowl did a quick full body scan, readouts telling him he was alright- a miracle in itself after being shot by Ironhide- and that all body alterations the Decepticons had forced upon him were gone. The only thing out of place was his internal chronometer, which was pretty well fragged.

As he tried to sit up, however, a big, rough hand shoved him back onto the berth. He stared up into the blue optics of Ratchet, who promptly brought one of his feared tools upon his head.

"No moving. Recharge. Now," The chartreuse CMO barked. "And just where did you get the pit slagged idea that letting Ironhide shoot you was a good idea, Prowl?" The wrench came down upon his cranial unit again, but not with as much force. Prowl almost smiled. Same old Ratchet. A noise off to the side made Prowl turn his head. There sat Jazz, who was supposed to be dead.

Well, Ratchet_ had _told him to go into recharge, but probably not in the way he did- after glitching out.

When Prowl onlined moments later, Ratchet was staring down at him again.

"Yes, he's alive. I don't know how. Mikalea figured it out. Don't think too hard about it, it's already fritzed out Red Alert too," Ratchet grumbled. "I retrieved all the data in your memory banks relating to what had happened after you disappeared in Vos. It clears enough up, at least. Now go back to recharge before I make yeh!"

Prowl reset his optics at the sudden answer of his unasked questions. As he turned his cranial unit to the side to start up the subroutines, he caught another glimpse of Jazz, one of four younglings that made up the bane of his existence. He was sporting several new dents, probably from having made Prowl fritz.

"Yo, Prowler! Goo' t' have y' back, man! I hear th' twins have been workin' on some new pranks la'ley, an' have you hear' the music here on Earth? 'Ts awesome, dude!" Jazz exclaimed, blasting out a rather famous internet video's song. It was loud, annoying, and played just to annoy the older of the two.

Prowl fell into a light recharge, wondering why, if everything had changed, was Jazz still being so immature.

* * *

**A/N1:** So here it is. I've finally gotten to editing and fixing up Something New! Do you like the Prologue? Is it any good?

So, for the full extent of the editing, it'll be more evident in coming chapters, but for the whole story, I'm compressing the chapters (For the most part, two chapters will become one) trying to close plotholes and the like. Mostly small stuff; the plot itself isn't changing or anything. The biggest change will be to the characters. I'm gonna try to make the bot's more in character, and the main OC is getting a bit of an overhaul. You'll see next chapter.

Thanks to all you guys who have been patient with me, and favorited this story. I hope that even though SN is getting updated and edited, it won't change too much. I hope you guys still like it!

~ADW


	2. New Plans

**Deja-Vu**

**Chapter 1 – New Plans**

* * *

It was typical. Abso-slaggin-_lutely_ typical. Starscream was in a very bad mood. An "I'm-gonna-blow-up-the-next-pitiful-ANYTHING-that-looks-at-me-funny" bad mood.

It was six weeks after the defeat at the human's Mission City. Two weeks into that time, Starscream had grown impatient waiting for Decepticons around the cosmos to show up on the miserable planet they were on. His extremely brilliant and thought out plan (take a human oil rig, turn it into a super magnet, haul up and try to resurrect Brawl, Bonecrusher and Blackout) had backfired immediately on account of the fact that Megatron was on top of the pile of mech bodies. So what better to do than scrounge his corpse for powerful upgrades?

Having the Decepticon Lord being dead first, probably.

After worming his way out of an impromptu offline-ing with only one bad injury, the seeker was then forced to repair his abusive leader, and after a day or two, put up with Frenzy as well.

The only good thing that happened, which had promptly turned bad, was Soundwave landing the Decepticon starship, the _Nemesis_. Starscream's trine was on the ship, as well as everything else the Decepticon cause needed. But then there was Soundwave - The idiotic telepath crashed it into the middle of the ocean, so only the extendable tower could go up over the waves. When it was extended.

Of course Megatron beat up Starscream for that, for no reason other than he was there, and that Soundwave blamed Skywarp for the inaccurate landing.

Right now Starscream was both monitoring the incoming communiqués in the command center, of which there were very few, and brooding. Well, both brooding and scheming. At least it was a little quieter now that Frenzy was gone, off spying as per 'Lord' Megatron's orders.

At least, it was quieter until the little pest called back in.

.:F-F-Frennnzy t-to Nemesis! Comeincomeincomein!:.

Starscream jolted at the rapid-fire message assaulting his audios. The purple telepath seated next to him tilted his head up in a miniscule sign of annoyance before turning on the speaker. The feeling was understandable; Frenzy had been sent to monitor one of the best hackers on this planet because he had ties to the Autobots, but lately Frenzy had been calling in for inane reasons.

"Frenzy" Soundwave started, "This is not about coffee again, is it? Megatron's orders to stay in covert operations in the human's dwelling were to be obeyed. Human: in contact with Autobots. Cover will be blown if you persist in going out for the drink called 'Starbucks'..."

.:N-n-n-no! S-Soundwave listens! F-f-fat human Glllenn hold c-convention. What I d-do?:.

Starscream cradled the bridge of his nasal plating in his claws, being sure to radiate as much contempt to the cassette-boss as he could. Ignoring this, Soundwave patiently answered.

"Specify type of meeting. Your order's specified no contact was to be made if the subject was not of importance."

.:S-sign ssssa-ay g-garage s-sale! T-t-take me out of d-dwelling, put st-stick-icky on m-me, has number on it! C-can't av-voidd, too man-many squishies here! H-he take other things, put st-sticky on, t-trade with other s-squishies for m-m-metal coins an-and pa-pa-paper!:.

"Use the information trade system, pest," said Starscream, "Humans take old things they do not want anymore, set up a crude store in front of their dwellings, and sell them. It is apparently quite an effective way to recycle trash. That would mean you fit in just fine, Frenzy."

"Request: Turn your vocalizer off," said Soundwave to the seeker. He turned the speaker back on.

"Amendment to command: if purchase of you is made, do not break cover. Call back to base when such action happens for further instruction."

.:Yeahyeahyeahyeah ok!:.

OOOO

The supposed 'convention' at Glenn's house was indeed a garage sale. The large hacker in question was trying to get a tall woman in a green shirt to buy a beat up mirror. A smaller hacker was trying to hide behind several computers – without moving, of course - and avoid the humans that could buy him. Unfortunately, it didn't work, and a pair of hands grabbed him roughly from the table, swinging the cassetticon haphazardly around.

"Hey, Mom," called his captor, walking up to Glenn and his customer.

"Yes?" responded the green-lady.

"Can you get me this boom box? It's cool, 'n you said I could have a new one since I dismantled the old one."

Frenzy felt like his tank had just fallen out. _Pleasepleaseplease. Any human b-but this one,_ he thought.

"How much is it?"

"Fifteen bucks. C'mon, mom! You _promised_, and I did those stupid tests, too," wheedled the girl holding him.

_Slag th-the p-p-promissse!_ begged Frenzy silently.

"Hmmm. I don't know, Joanne. Your track record with electronics…"

Glenn interrupted the mother and daughter debate. "One sec, Julia. If your lovely li'l daughter wants that boom box, I'll let her have it free."

_Nooo!_

"Really, Glenn?" said the daughter in disbelief, clutching Frenzy uncomfortably to her chest.

"Now, Glenn," said Julia. "I can pay for it…"

"Naw, it's officially a present for my girl, hacker to hacker. An' if anyone can make that thing work, it's Joey," Glenn insisted with a wink to Frenzy's newly-named abductor, who swung the Decepticon around happily. He was rapidly getting nauseous, and not just from the swinging.

_Sh-sh-should g-get Soundwave t-to write up a wi-illl f-for m-m-me..._

OOOO

Soundwave was fiddling with an interesting human invention when the receiver signaled an incoming communiqué. He placed the cube onto the desk and turned on the speaker, only to get a blast of extremely panicked chatter as Frenzy tried to explain what was going on. It took a klik of calming waves to his creation before he could understand what Frenzy was saying.

.:B-bb-badd! Babdbadbadbad Sssound-dwavve! Hummman Gl-Glenn gi-give me t-to hum-man ggggirrl is baaaaaad!!!:.

Alarmed at the tone, Soundwave leaned in slightly before responding. "Inquiry: What is the danger? Report how this situation was encountered."

.:F-f-female grab m-me, swingswingswing m-me arou-round, th-then talktalktalktalk,:. Frenzy started, being as calm as possible, a feat for him. .:B-b-beg her creato-tor f-for m-me, crea-ator say nnno, c-creatio-tion dismant-tles other-err ele-ele-electro-tronics befo-fore! B-but Gl-Glenn knowsss her, she is oth-other hack-acker he says, he gi-give m-me t-t-to g-girl!:.

Starscream chuckled behind Soundwave; he had been the one to suggest the fat hacker needed to be spied on. It had resulted in several days of blissful quiet for him to work in. Ah well...

"Frenzy," Soundwave responded calmly, "As the female is a hacker with a tie to your target, it is possible she may have knowledge of certain secrets that may be of importance to us. Additional asset: female may provide the Decepticons with a less important 'bargaining chip' of sorts. Mission: Spy on new target."

A small unhappy sound came from Frenzy's end of the link, followed by a telepathic confirmation of the new job. Soundwave answered silently in kind before quickly pushing a few buttons, which killed the link. He then picked up the multicolored cube from the console, and resumed solving it for the fortieth time in the past few breems, Starscream watching with amusement.

OOOO

It had only been a few hours since Frenzy's spying on Joanne had began, but already he had made several notes on the girl. She was not what could be considered 'normal' by any standards of the human races. She was rather tall, athletically built, but obviously wasn't that popular among her peers; there were several slips of paper on the shelf next to Frenzy that cited her for 'Disorderly Conduct on School Property' and 'Instigation of Verbal/Physical Altercation'.

The girl in question was, at the moment, sitting at her computer desk, thunking away feverishly at her keyboard and mumbling something under her breath. Frenzy couldn't catch much, but there were mentions of the human Glenn, and an abduction of sorts.

Suddenly, she gave a start, jumping up quickly from the desk before shoving a data disk into the casseticon's drive. He auto-played it, only to hear loud, video-game sounding music from his speakers. Joanne plopped back into her seat and crammed a memory stick into a port on her computer. It brought up several windows that she navigated with ease. She selected a program, then typed in a few commands that, though they flashed too fast for Frenzy to snap a picture, almost resembled Cybertronian in origin. That caught his attention, and he focused in on the screen.

The program running was cycling through hundreds of servers at a blazing speed. Every few it would stop, upload its data into a computer and platform on from there, in the span of a few seconds. Within minutes the virus had entered the same government server that Frenzy himself had accessed just months beforehand.

With practiced ease, Joanne zipped another file along the path already formed by her previous program and ran it. Then Frenzy was impressed; She virtually 'strolled' right into the government databanks and started screwing around with some information, without being caught.

Less than five minutes later, she was done, and she ran another program along the trail that deleted all traces.

Frenzy was very happy that he had recorded the whole thing for Soundwave, and even the obnoxious song playing _(Wh-wh-what th-the p-p-pit iss Son-nic th-the Hed-edghog?) _didn't detract from the spectacle that he had just witnessed. Even he himself had a tremendous amount of trouble with hacking on that level, but this… human had just done it without batting an optic.

Obviously unaware of the living boom box behind her that was 'D8'-ing as best as an 'inanimate' object could, Joanne plopped down on a big swivel chair with a large book in her lap. She grabbed the remote control for the television before her and turned on the news.

She sat reading the book for almost an hour before a breaking news report caught her interest. She sent a quick message to what Frenzy took to be his previous target's computer ("yo fatvirgin4life, turn on channel 7 -duncallmehoomin") and sat back down, riveted on the screen.

_"This is a breaking news update,"_ Said the reporter._ "The Pentagon is reporting a massive security breach of the country's databanking system. While it is still unclear who committed this crime, punishable by life in prison, or from where it was committed, one thing has been reported for sure. The security information of at least twenty people, all whom at one point worked for the branch of government that handled the Mission City crisis, has been either deleted or tampered with. While may not be permanent due to backing systems it is sure that-"_ The television blipped off, cutting the tall woman off mid sentence. Katie stood up, doing a little jig and looking pleased with herself.

"Yeah, I made national news! Awesome! That'll show Sector Seven to abduct my best buddeh!"

Frenzy could hardly believe his audio receptors. He was doubly glad he had decided to videotape and stream this person back to Soundwave. But then Joanne upped the weirdness factor 300 percent.

After tying her hair back into a ponytail, she pulled a slagging _sandbag_ out of her closet, along with a metal pole. Pausing only to change the song coming from Frenzy's speakers to something that was upbeat and almost Cybertronian-sounding song, Joanne then started doing something that was a mix between dancing and kicking the scrap out of the sandbag using the pole.

_S-s-something abou-out thi-is femme isss v-very fa-famil-iliar,_ thought Frenzy to himself, not noticing he had thought of her as a Cybertronian. He stopped wondering what it was when the 'femme' in question did three things very quickly.

First, she dropped her pole on her foot.

Second, having dropped the pole on her foot and causing great pain in that area, she hopped about on the uninjured appendage, swearing in Cybertronian.

Last, while Frenzy was still trying to figure out why Joanne had been cursing in an alien language, she dropped to the floor and did what could only be described as, 'rofling'.

OOOO

Starscream was absolutely gaping at the monitor in the control room. Frenzy had been streaming the video of the human he was now owned by an hour or so after he was 'relocated'. The first images had only been as questions; Frenzy wasn't kept in close contact to Glenn, and he didn't have the personality quirks this girl did.

Before Soundwave and Starscream hadn't really paid attention to the screen as it went through footage of the human playing a dancing game aggressively, or when she had been talking to herself, but since Frenzy had pinged them when she started hacking, they were watching with more interest. And now…

The frantic voice of Frenzy broke through the speakers. .:Helphelphelp! I th-th-think femme b-broken!:. He screeched. Though Frenzy didn't normally think much of humans, it was easy to see where the thought came from, as the girl was sitting in the middle of the floor, laughing her head off about seemingly _nothing_.

Soundwave turned on the receiving speakers while off to the side, Starscream was just staring at the screen, wondering how humans could be so stupid.

"Frenzy: concern unneeded. Adrenalin in girl's system is making her behave erratically. The effect shall wear off soon," Soundwave said. "You made an illogical statement; the subject in question is a _homo sapiens sapiens_, while femmes are a portion of Cybertronian society. Explain."

Frenzy shifted psychically to an uncomfortable 'stance'. .:S-s-something d-different. She not a n-n-normal h-human. Acts m-more l-like one of us. Except f-for ch-chaoti-tic beha-havior, she worse th-than m-m-me!:.

After another minute or so, when the 'femme' stopped laughing, and after shoving the sandbag and pole back into her closet, she turned on the television and got out a square mat, which she started dancing on agilely, matching arrows flying across the screen perfectly.

Now, neither Soundwave nor Megatron had much knowledge of humans at this point, or else what happened next may have turned out differently. They didn't, however, and in the long run this would change the course of Cybertronian and Earthen history. But that, obviously, we aren't there yet.

OOOO

Though he would never admit it, Frenzy was enjoying himself. In the span of a few hours he had been given treat to an interesting insight on human life, and the cassetticon realized that not all humans were as stupid as he had first perceived.

For example, the femme he was watching was a terrific hacker, an almost scary fighter, and evidently played video games with more grace and skill than Glenn or his even fatter cousin. She was not a goody-two-bolts like most other humans he had encountered, either. Not that he liked her, of course. That would be rather un-Decepticon-ish of him.

His internal comm. link crackled with static as Soundwave contacted him with another update. .:Do not blow cover:. Came his creator/leader's voice over the link. .:The human has been deemed of enough importance to be brought back to the Nemesis for study and possible use. New order: await Starscream's arrival at nineteen-hundred hours local human time. Soundwave out:.

Frenzy sent back a mental 'OK' before turning his attention back to the human. She was still playing the dancing game, but had backed off the 'Expert' level to cool off. If boom-boxes could smirk, that would be what Frenzy was doing. _St-stay und-derc-co-cover n-not s-s-so ha-ard. T-t-too baddd I no h-h-have c-c-cof-f-ee…_

OOOO

No longer in her bedroom as she had been all day long, Jo Berry was sitting with her family in a room downstairs. The usual routine had taken place- Eat dinner, get scolded for doing something stupid that in the end is quite funny (today it was take apart a perfectly good television) and then watch Wheel of Fortune. However, there was a feeling in her gut that something was off, as there had been all day, and when a loud thud that shook the house on its supports came during the opening theme, she jumped about a foot in the air.

Jo's father stood up and walked to the door. "That didn't sound good. I'm going to go see what that was, call 911, ok girls?"

As soon as he left out the back door, Jo's mother grabbed the phone and dialed for emergency. Because she was talking to emergency services she couldn't hear what was going on in the backyard, but Jo and her older sister could. There was her father's voice yelling angrily, something that rarely ever happened, and then what could be called a voice, but it sounded like it had been run through a synthesizer and backed up with a metallic sound.

"What the he- Is this some sort of joke? What are you supposed to be?" shouted Jo's father, fear mingling with the anger. A grinding sound, and then –

"Do not test my patience, organic filth. If you value your life you will bring me your youngest creation. Otherwise the consequences will be fatal."

There was a sound of disagreement before a fleshy thud. Then the voice came again. "I'm waiting, human. Quickly, or your creator won't function much longer," it taunted.

Jo's sister, Madison, was shivering violently and had her face buried in the couch, despite being seventeen. Their mother was becoming hysterical on the telephone, saying someone was trying to abduct her daughter. Neither of the women's reaction's touched Joanne's. She was dead calm, and even had a small smile on her face. Despite the warnings of her mother and sister, she stood up and walked to the back door.

"Don't worry, guys. It's probably just some nutso with a baseball bat anyways. The police are on their way, I'll be fine." And with that she walked out into the back door.

The first thing she saw was her father laying in an awkward heap on the patio. He was still visibly breathing, though, so her alarm on that front was kept to a minimum. The next thing Jo noticed was a rather large, metallic leg. Which led up to a rather large, metallic body, with a rather large, metallic face on top, wearing a rather large, metallic, dissatisfied scowl. Jo smirked, finding the whole situation quite non-alarming.

"Hey, giant tin can," she shouted up at the metal being, "Who are you, why'd yeh hit my dad into next week, and what are you doing here?"

Of all the reactions Starscream could've gotten from the human, this was the most surprising. Not that he let it show. "My designation is Starscream. I am the Second in Command of the Decepticons of the planet Cybertron. I'm here to bring you back to my leader, who will more than likely kill you." Starscream expected terror, maybe some furious screeching, or even a little fluid leaking. None of those reactions were what he got from the five-foot-six human.

"Well, why didn't you say so, Screamer? Let me grab my stuff. My name's Jo, by the way."

-o-o-o-o-

Frenzy couldn't believe what he was hearing. He was sitting on the shelf in the femme's room still, but since the widow of her second floor bedroom was open, he could hear everything that was going on outside, and it was just adding to the supreme weirdness of the day.

First, _Starscream_ was _nice_ to an _organic_. Well, maybe not nice, but pretty polite, considering his loathing of pretty much anything that ever existed. And then, of course, the femme he was here for…

"Well, why didn't you say so, Screamer? Let me grab my stuff. My name's Jo, by the way."

Frenzy was caught somewhere between howling with laughter and yelling in confusion. Somehow the femme had to have known that Starscream was coming, because she wasn't scared in the slightest. And she knew his nickname! Frenzy, giving into his confusion, commed back to the _Nemesis_.

-o-o-o-o-

Soundwave had long since finished the 'Rubik's cube' for the umpteenth time, and he was monitoring the communications diligently when another odd communiqué came in. He groaned quietly and allowed the link to come through.

.:F-fe-femme not ssscared! Sh-she c-call Starscream 'S-S-Screamer, no-not m-mad abou-out creat-tor being hu-hurt, c-coming c-c-compliantttly! Whwyhwywhy?:.

Soundwave considered the new information for a moment. It certainly was strange, that the human was just going along with their plans. Perhaps she was mentally disabled. This would warrant further study when she arrived on base.

"Reason: Unknown. Orders are unchanged; await retrieval. Gather information whilst waiting. Soundwave out."

-o-o-o-o-

Jo was not scared at all. Illogical? Probably. But the human wasn't known for logic. Illogic, sure, and that was the only reason that she would be feeling the way she was feeling about the whole situation. And that would be collected, happy, a little wonky with a side order of a pit of a sense of déjà vu. Meh.

'Meh' was pretty much the only thing she could think other than 'omigawdomigawdOMIGAWD there'safragginggiantrobotinmybackyardthisiswaaaaytoocool!!!!' . So she had to have the mech repeat himself when he gave her an order she missed.

"I said, fleshie, that you have permission to get enough supplies to last an indefinite amount of time. I will allow you five of your 'minutes' and also place you directly into your quarters. Do you need me to repeat it again, incase your memory is really that bad?"

"Nah, I'm cool," Jo countered smoothly, before looking up at her window. "Ah, stupid question-"

"I'm sure it is."

"Lift me up to my window?"

There was something like a grunt from the mech as he roughly grabbed the human and deposited her on the roof next to the window.

What she first saw when she stepped inside was not what Jo expected, but Frenzy gave her credit; Most humans he had encountered would not have chucked a cloth bag at him and instructed him to fill it with 'clothes'.

"So, you coming too?" asked the femme. Frenzy, preoccupied with trying to find out what the different garments were, just nodded. Jo hummed neutrally and stuffed several electronic devices into the bag.

Roughly another minute of the allotted five went by in silence before Jo stood up and walked over to her closet, pulling out the pole Frenzy had seen her practicing with earlier.

"D'ya think I can bring this?"

Frenzy reset his optics quickly. "N-n-no. Sta-starsc-scream c-c-cockp-pit won't have enou-nough room."

"Aww," the human pouted, "But it's on my top ten list of 'things I'm going to pack with me if I'm kidnapped'!" Frenzy openly gaped at her.

"Wh-why you ev-ven ha-have list li-like th-that?"

Deadpan, Jo shot back, "Doesn't everybody?"

Frenzy shook his head and stuffed the last few cloth things into the backpack, just as Jo grabbed a big container and tossed it down next to the full backpack. Then she turned back towards the small mech. She fiddled with the hem of her shirt a moment before grabbing her pack, and the box.

"So… This is gonna sound epically weird if I'm wrong, just so you know," she started as she shoved the box out her window. "But… Do you do some sort of… Transformery thingie? Just for transportation purposes?"

Surprise flitted across Frenzy's limited facial structure, and he nodded. An odd noise sounded as his body fell apart and reconstructed into the boom-box she had been given earlier. With an excited squeal, Jo grabbed the Decepticon and vaulted out the window.

Starscream watched with an appraising eye as the human landed with grace on the roof, a bag, a box, and a boom-box in tow. "I suppose your time was acceptable, though you could have done better than nearly four of your minutes. Now then…"

Without preamble, Starscream seized Jo and threw her and her items up in the air, her screaming all the way with terror. Then he jumped up himself, twisting and turning as he transformed. With a graceful motion, he caught the human, items and Frenzy, and before any protest could be announced, Starscream launched missiles at the house.

The last thing Jo Berry saw of her home was a burst of flames, and the emergency forces of Washington D.C. speeding to the location.

-o-o-o-o-

.:Starscream to base:.

Once again interrupted from doing something because of the infernal computer, Soundwave sighed quietly and turned on the speaker-reciever.

"Base responding. Inquiry: Mission going to plan?"

.:Yes, I've obtained the human. Estimated time until arrival: one hour.:.

Soundwave didn't need his telepathic powers to know something else was up. "…And?"

Starscream let out a small yelp of pain – surprising enough – before responding. .:The girl is not scared of me in the slightest, and she has extensive knowledge of Cybertronian curses. Oh and - OW! - She can kick and punch really hard, for a squishy. It's possible I may have some- OWCH! Stoppit, femmling! – Internal injuries from this.:.

"Did you not put her into stasis before destroying her living area?"

.: …No… :.

"Her reason for attacking you is justified. Attempt calming of human before return, however, placing her into stasis is now unacceptable. Stream Data of interest. Soundwave out."

Satisfied that nothing more was going to disturb his flow of concentration, and secretly happy that the whiny Seeker now had to deal with an angry human, Soundwave turned back to the human gadget that was occupying him now. For useless organics, their puzzles were quite fun.

-o-o-o-o-

"SLAGGING SONUVA SELF-SPARKED ENERGON-CONVERTER!!!!!!!!!!!"

Starscream had every reason to be wincing in pain. The first human ever to be inside a Decepticon Seeker was currently doing her best to simultaneously kick out his dash, tear off his steering component, and bite through the pilot's seat, all the while angry tears streaming down her face, all over the inside of the flyer.

"WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!!!?"

Kick, punch, kick.

"YOU COULDA KILLED THEM, YOU INSENSITIVE SCRAPHEAP!!!"

Bite, bite, pull.

"IF THEY'RE DEAD, IMMA OFFLINE YOU, FRAGGER!!!"

The screaming and crying and beating of the Seeker continued for a good half hour, before Jo calmed down, having worked her anger and grief out. The cockpit around her looked worse for the wear, dents in the dash, the steering column crooked, and bite marks up and down the pilot's seat.

"Are you finished, _human_?" Said 'Screamer snidely. "My flawless interior is now less than acceptable, thanks to you. Just be thankful you'll be finished quickly by Lord Megatron, or else your death would be long and drawn out thanks to this insult. Your worthless creators will survive, only because I let them, so if you'll finish your hormonal rampage…"

One last bitter kick shattered a dialy-display thingie, causing Starscream to jolt as if in turbulence, and Frenzy and Jo to smile. "_Now_ I'm done, you fragging biplane," she spat, but with more good humor than she had a few minutes before. "I have a name though, and I'd like it if you used it. Jo. Got it?"

If Starscream had been in bipedal mode he would've just shifted his wings and scoffed. "Whatever." Suddenly, another voice joined the conversation, crackling from the speakers of the smallish boom-box next to the seat.

"J-j-just c-call her b-by d-desi-sig-signatio-tion, S-S-screamer. Sh-she d-d-different f-f-from oth-ther squi-quishies, t-t-treat fair!"

"Shut the slag up, Frenzy."

With the two Decepticons bickering in the background, Jo stared out the bubble of the cockpit. Now she knew her parents were safe, even if injured, she was much calmer. People had always said Jo went 'with the flow' too well, that she never regretted anything and didn't get mad easily, and when she did, calmed down swiftly. It served her well now.

_I can't believe I'm actually doing this_, she mused to herself, oblivious to the fact the argument between Frenzy and Starscream was escalating. _Ever since that attack on Mission City, with these guys fighting, everything's felt weird, but this really takes the cake!_

"Waa-g-gah!!"

Jo snapped out of her musing as the silvery boom-box, which was now a spazzing cassetticon, launched at the dash of the bigger mech, doing a considerable amount more damage than Jo herself had done. She hopped up out of the chair and tried to pry the 'con off the dash, but it didn't work. He was jabbering in a language that she didn't understand, but it sounded like a very angry Russian chipmunk, not to mention that he was laying waste to some delicate looking instruments, 'Screamer living up to his moniker in the background.

Jo cleared her throat. "Ya know, dude, though I might've been beatin' on the big lug myself, I think you might be doing a bit more damage than I did. And I don't know about you, but I like flying things to _stay_ flying while I'm in them." It took barely a second's thought to convince Frenzy that what he was doing was a bad idea, and he clambered off the dash, crouching next to Jo in the enclosed space.

"Y-your r-r-right. S-s-s-sorry. I'm Fr-Frenzy, b-by th-th-the way."

"S'okay. I'm Jo, but'cha already knew that one, I think."

The teen offered her hand for Frenzy to shake. After a few seconds of thinking (and awkward silence) Frenzy reached out and took it, shaking vigorously. Starscream make a gagging noise.

"Gah, how cute. A human and a Decepticon being friends. Megatron'll have your head, Frenzy." Frenzy made a small sad noise at the teasing and transformed back into his alt mode. Jo slapped the steering wheel irritably.

"Wat'cha do that for? Just cuz no one likes you don't mean you can take it out on us, you aft."

Frenzy sniggered, and Starscream just kept his vocals off. Primus was he glad he was streaming all this back to the Nemesis, because it meant Frenzy would be reprimanded _nicely_. Jo muttered "Thinks he so high and mighty just cuz he's so slaggin' big," before turning back and facing the passing landscape for the rest of the journey, humming music that made both the Decepticons in her presence mildly annoyed.

-o-o-o-o-

Back in the command center, Soundwave was preparing for the arrival of Starscream, Frenzy, their 'prisoner', and interestingly, a fresh arrival to the planet. Though he hadn't gotten the new mech's designation, he was due to arrive about the same time as-

.:Starscream to Base. I am within five minutes of the _Nemesis_. Request permission to land.:.

Yeah. Him. Soundwave was just about to confirm that he would raise the landing deck, when the new arrival pinged the base. Soundwave instantly wished it was any other mech.

.:Blitzving to ze _Nemesis_, come in _Nemesis_. I have just made planetfall und am requesting permission to land, ovah.:. Came the voice of the most unstable mech ever created. Thankfully it was the most sane of the three talking at the moment. Soundwave suppressed a groan and responded to him first.

"Permission granted, Blitzwing. Descend onto landing dock after Starscream has landed. Understood?"

There was an almost imperceptible _schwinchk_, and Blitzwing commed back, but not Icy. .:VE HAFF BEEN FLYING FOAH EVAH!!!!! THAT SLAGGER VILL LAND AFTAH US OF ELSE I VILL-:. _schwinchk_ .:Go give Megsie ein gross kiss un dance all ovah the Base, it vill be so fun~:. _schwinchk, _Icy sighed, obviously fed up with his brothers. .:Ja, I vill land after Starscream. Blitzving out:.

Now done dealing with Blitzwing, Soundwave pressed a big, shiny red button, which raised the landing tower, and then proceeded to the area himself.

-o-o-o-o-

The landscape had rapidly changed, going quickly from the Midwest, to Central United States, and now Starscream was flying over the ocean. They only did so for a few minutes, before Starscream began his descent. Frenzy, who was now bipedal again, and Jo stared out the window, transfixed by the ocean, until Jo noticed an odd jet headed the same direction.

"Who's that?" she said, pointing at the other flyer, something that looked like a jet crossed with a tank, and her appeared to be having trouble deciding how to fly. Frenzy peered over Jo's shoulder and snorted.

"Th-th-that Blit-Blitzwing. He's cra-crazy. You m-m-meet him whe-when we lan-nd."

Jo looked around obliviously. "Land where?"

As if to answer her, a giant tower of steel rose up out of the ocean, like some sort of ghostly spire.

They had arrived at the Nemesis.

* * *

**A/N:** So here you can see the full extent of mah editing. I'm taking out Sideways and using Blitzy instead (Because he is just that awesome), and trying to close up some plotholes. Am I successful? Do you like the really super long format? That's what I'm sticking with, fyi.

One of the more prominent changes, obviously, is from the OC's name being Katie Berry to being Jo Berry. The main reason for that, actually, is because when I first drafted this fic, I couldn't think of a good name for her, and instead of taking the time to, I said 'what the heck, I'll use my name, no-one would know'. Except, in the end, it get's reeeeeelly weird, writing a story using your own name, especially if you aren't trying to Sue it. So, her name is now Jo. And I like Jo. How about you guys?

Anyways, I'm going to try and update in about three weeks, and I'll try to make that my schedule. Please review, guys!


	3. Abnormal

**Disclaimer: If I owned Transformers, ROTF would've been REELY different. I don't, so it's not.**

**Author's notes at the bottom!**

**Deja-Vu**

**Chapter 2 – Abnormal**

* * *

Jo gazed out over the spire as it extended to loom over the ocean, thoroughly amazed.

"So, that means that your whole base is underwater?"

"Your powers of deduction are astounding, fleshling," replied Starscream sarcastically. Jo ignored this as Frenzy answered.

"Y-y-y-yeah. M-my m-m-master Soundwave c-cr-crashed ittt. W-was f-f-funny. L-l-like a r-ride in a th-theme park. M-made M-Megatron mad, th-though, s-so he b-b-beat on S-s-sceamer, which was ev-ven more fu-fu-funny." That actually made Jo go into a slight fit of giggles again.

"M'kay," she said when she recovered. "As funny as that is, why in the Pit would your leader beat on one of his men? Why is Soundwave your master? And how do you know what an amusement is like?"

"While ignorance is no excuse for stupidity, your questions just seem to accentuate your idiocy. Deactivate your vocalizers, human." Starscream was starting to get on Jo's nerves. In fact...

SMACK!!! Her hand connected hard with the wheel of the jetformer, with maximum surface area and power.

"Owich!! What did you do that for?!?"

"I wasn't talkin' to you. Plus your voice sounds like three cats stuck in a blender with Squidward playing clarinet for background music." That nonsensical saying, coupled with the fact that the human had just slapped the steering wheel of Megatron's second-in-command for no good reason, made Frenzy howl with laughter. Starscream growled something about needing to kill small things.

Affter a moment Frenzy recovered enough to answer Jo's question. "y-you underst-stand when y-you m-meet Mega-egatron. I e-explain 'b-bout Soundwave l-l-later. Theme p-parks? B-B-Barricade n-not all b-bad. If you b-b-bug himmm enough he t-take you anywhere!!!!! And I think th-theme parks are funnnnnnn!" Thankfully, Jo didn't notice Frenzy wince as he unintentionally let slip Barricade. It was still sore with him that the virus didn't hold. And of course, that Barricade no longer existed…

"Shut off your vocalizer, you little glitch-bag," Starscream burst in again before anything else could be thought or said. "I need to concentrate to land."

"Nya!" Jo stuck her tongue out at the dashboard but said nothing else. Frenzy chuckled and transformed back into boom box form, Starscream silently swooping in for his landing.

-o-o-o-o-

After having raised the docking platform, Soundwave made his way up to the area himself. Normally this wasn't standard procedure for the mech, but he was particularly interested in the human that Starscream and Frenzy had with them. In addition to everything strange about her already, Frenzy seemed to have taken a liking to her, and even went so far as to call her a 'femme'. This definitely piqued Soundwave's curiosity.

Just as the purple telepath arrived at the platform, Starscream touched down, his quick landing causing several cleaning drones to scurry out of the way. As he screeched to a halt, Soundwave could see the human female in the cockpit, surprisingly calm, even interested, looking at the telepath with little to no fear in her (admittedly erratic) brain patterns.

Without warning though, the cockpit opened, launching the human and her belongings (not to mention Frenzy) tumbling through the air until they landed in an unceremonious heap on the floor. Starscream transformed back to bipedal form, and under the confused look of Soundwave, ticked backwards from three on his fingers.

3…2…1…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The howl from the female caught Soundwave off guard. What she did next was even more startling. Without preamble, she rushed up to Starscream, still yelling incoherently, and aimed a kick at his ankle joint. It had enough power, and hit in just the right spot, to make the flyer wince and grind his denta. He reached down and grabbed the femme (_Slag it all, did I just refer to her as a femme as well?_) and lifted her to his face roughly.

"Stop. Hitting. Me." growled Starscream.

"Didn't hit you," said the girl, wheezing because of the firmness of his grip, "Kicked you. And I recall asking you not to toss me around without warning. That includes forced ejection." If Soundwave thought that organics were on the same level as Cybertronians, he would've admired her bravery, or at least her insane stupidity. However, at the moment, Starscream was crushing the girl, so something had to be done.

"Starscream: release the female. If the human's internals experience any more pressure there is possibility of shutdown. Release to me," Soundwave ordered, holding out his metal hand. Starscream mumbled something extremely rude in Cybertronian, and the small human laughed. Could she..? No. That would be illogical, the telepath reasoned mentally.

As the femmling - _adolescent human female_, Soundwave corrected himself, making a note to scan for viruses before recharge – was dropped into his palm, Soundwave made quick note of her attributes, for both a file and his own curiosity. She was tall and skinny for a human her age, roughly five feet, six inches tall, and about one-hundred twenty-five pounds. Comparing the girl to pictures of others her age group, he could not find anything that an organic would find extraordinary. She was an extremely normal human, with shoulder-length red-brown hair, and tan skin. Her eyes were strikingly yellow, but not much else stood out about her.

_But then how,_ Soundwave asked himself, puzzled, _does she manage to exude such an odd field?_ And it was true; Soundwave's mental probes were deflected by a storm of thought and emotion most humans were incapable of.

"Designation and Specialty?" Soundwave then asked, filing away his observations. The human didn't even need to think before responding.

"Designation: Jo. Specialty: High-end programming and sabotage."

"Sabotage?"

Jo stared at Soundwave like he had grown a second head. "If you can make a computer virus that can wipe out a whole grid of internet connections, and you like fiddling with electronics, it's no trouble to destroy it quickly and quietly," she said, amused.

Soundwave sent a query over his bond with Frenzy, who twitched in a shrug. "Sh-sh-she makes g-g-good point."

A sudden roar of jet turbines entered the hangar. Soundwave and small beings in tow turned to the source of the sound in time to see a large vehicle, some sort of Frankenstein mash of a Leopard 2a6 tank, and a T-38 Talon, colored tan and purple. Starscream had long since disappeared, probably back to his quarters. As the sound of the mech's transforming Soundwave noticed the human - Jo – stood up to look at him over the telepath's fingers.

Not a good idea when dealing with three mentally unstable entities in one body.

"Hallo, Herr Soundva- Vas ist das? Are jou holding ein-" the cool voice of Blitzwing disappeared with a _schwink_, and his face was covered with what resembled a black LED screen bearing red jack-o-lantern eyes and mouth. "Small und sqvishy sing! Iz it a present foah me? Soundvave, jou are mein besterest friend!"

Before Soundwave could reprimand the unstable personality of Blitzwing, the small form of Jo yelled out smoothly. "Oi! Herr Unwissend ! I hope you weren't referring to me, cuz I'm not an 'it'."

Thankfully, the angrier of the three didn't surface at that comment. Instead, Blitzwing looked slightly more giddy than normal. "Naww, it'z so cute! Make it talk again, Soundvave!"

Jo's mental patterns became more erratic. _That is not a good indicator of things to come_, Soundwave thought grimly. The fact that there was quite a bit of happiness streaking though the little human's chaotic mind didn't escape him, however.

"Ok, Crazyface, I don't know what your malfunction is, but if you don't stop acting like a glitched sparkling, we're gonna have problems." It was very difficult to see the playful grin on the human's face, obviously.

_Schwink_. The LED face retracted, revealing a red-toned face with a visor and broken denta. "VHAT DID ZHOU SAY ZHOU LEETLE STAIN ON MAH PEDES? I VILL CRUSH ZHOU!!!!!!" He yelled, making a grab for Jo. Soundwave moved her out of the way quickly.

"Blitzwing: Desist. Human Jo is a new 'recruit' to the Decepticon cause, as per Lord Megatron's orders."

Blitzwing looked like he wanted to protest that quite violently and loudly, but he was bested by his brother. All the plating on his face shifted to reveal the original Jo had seen. Slight disgust and indignance tinged his cool features. "Mein apologies for mein bruzzers, Soundvave. Obviously Herr Megatron has a better reason zhan I can sink of for vanting ze little fleshbag. I vill report to ze Var Room for debriefing, ja?"

"Affirmative," Soundwave nodded, ignoring the affronted looks from Jo. "I will arrive in five breems."

Blitzwing walked off, but not before the human could get the last word in. "I liked Crazyface better! He had personality!"

Soundwave could just hear the conversation in Blitzwing's processor: _"Did zhou hear zhat, Iceving? I'm not insane – I haff personality!" "Ja, Wirrwarr,__but if zhat iz personality, I am almost happy to be considered dull among our comrades…" "Iceving, vhy did jou not allow me to attack zhat vorthless organic? Megatron could not really vant vone of zhose slimy zings, especially vone as badly tempered as zhat!" "Nein, Blitzfire! I dislike having gore on my hands, as zhou refuse to clean it up." "I could! I vant to know vhat zhat tastes like!!!"_

"Yo, Sounds!" The organic in the mech's hands distracted him from probing into the mental conversation more. "Weren't you going to-" she broke off laughing for a minute or two, and Frenzy was looking up, wondering what was going on. When Jo recovered, she still looked like she was fighting to keep a straight face. "Weren't you going to take me to your leader?"

"Yes. I am," Soundwave said, confused. Only joors of practice kept what the humans called 'WTF?' out of his voice. Frenzy was laughing at this point as well. A quick order to get all of Jo's belongings to her temporary 'quarters' shut him up, though. As Frenzy went about trying to lift the large box, Soundwave went off down the hallway again, being bombarded by babble from his passenger.

"Why am I here?" "Why did he have three faces?" "Do you guys get free internet down here?"

The mindless questions…

"Doesn't 'Screamer have other mechs he normally flies with?" "If Frenzy's a hacker, why do you need me?" "You aren't normally here on Earth; why did you come?"

And the strangely intuitive ones.

"Why do you guys need air in your base if you don't gotta breathe?"

Soundwave silently came to the conclusion that this human asked too many questions, and was thoroughly relieved when he arrived at the door leading to Megatron's study. It slid open automatically after he entered a password with a _hiss_ to reveal the tall silver and black mech at his desk. He looked up and glared for them to enter.

"Well? Where is it?" Megatron demanded gruffly. Soundwave stepped forward and deposited Jo on the desk, hoping for some reason that she wouldn't say something that would instantly get her killed.

Though the little mental storm Soundwave had noticed was now buzzing wilder, fear, anger and excitement now able to be sensed, she kept on the polite side.

"Hi sir! I'm Jo, hacker and saboteur extraordinaire!" She chirped, saluting enthusiastically. The large mech before her quirked an eye ridge at the display of pluckiness.

"Greetings, human. I am the Decepticon Lord Megatron."

* * *

Jo wasn't scared of Megatron. Why? It wasn't really as much a 'why' as a few half-afted reasons.

One: Megatron is made of awesome-sauce. Two: He could kill her with little more than a flick off his desk. Three: He dislikes humans, so if she just acted like she normally did instead of a groveling scared organic whatsit, he'd be less inclined to kill her. Four: Talking like she normally did would just make him torqued, which would make him squish her…

Wait… Now she was getting into reasons to be scared…

Thankfully, Megatron began speaking again before Jo drifted too far from reality.

"Do you know why you are here, human?" he rumbled threateningly.

_I'm a programmer, _she thought, bemused. _I have no clue why you need me!_ "Nope, not a clue! But since I'm pretty useless until I know…" Jo let it trail off, doing her best not to have an attitude.

Megatron chuckled, an extremely frightening sound. "You are surprisingly brave, for a human. I may decide to spare your life in the end." He paused, sizing Jo up. "If you prove to be useful, your chances for surviving here will increase dramatically. Currently, I ordered for your abduction for one purpose. You are a surprisingly good hacker for being _organic_. Your skills rival with those of Frenzy, one of my own hackers. I like power. You rather disgusting organics do have a saying that interests me; that 'knowledge is power'. With your skills combined with those of Frenzy, my troops and I would be in possession of all knowledge on this puny planet."

"Huh," Jo said. She didn't think Megatron was telling the truth (_I'm a human, I'm not stupid_) but she wasn't getting anything else, so… "Well, I don't think I really have a choice, but it sounds fun enough." She performed a Roman salute, striking her chest with her fist. "I shan't letcha down, Mr. Megsie!"

If he had been human, the vein in Megatron's temple would've been bulging. As it was, you could practically see him thinking, _I won't kill the organic, I won't kill the organic!!!_

"Fine," he grumbled, already annoyed. "I may as well tell you where you are. This is the Decepticon flagship, the _Nemesis_. I am currently awaiting the arrival of my forces so that the Autobots-"

Jo broke in, earning a curious glare from the Decepticon leader. "Yah. Let me guess, you're at war, right? You are at war and that has something to do with Glenn being in contact with the other faction, the Autobots, so you planted Frenzy there to spy on him, right? And you really loathe the Autobots and stuff, and that means you needed intel on them, right?" Megatron reset his optics, hoping it would reveal just what the source was behind the human. Most humans were very stupid, but this one caught up fairly quickly.

"Correct. Do you know exactly what happened in Mission City?"

Jo made a small, scoffing noise. "Ha! How stupid do you think I am? Don't take anything without proof, that should be anyone's motto…" she trailed off, but a pointed look from Megatron got her back on track. "Er, yeah. It was all over the news a few months ago, but only the damage was shown. Government told people it was a 'terrorist attack'. Pheh. I know terrorist attacks, there was a terrible one a couple years ago. Google 9/11," Jo told Megatron waving her hand haphazardly but not lifting her head. It was hung down, now, because there was a dark expression on her face at the thought. "There were pictures on the internet for a day or so, before the websites they were on got 'hacked'. The government pulled them. Same with any blogs or sites with mention of something odd. I got a glimpse of a picture that had a giant robot in it and knew they were lying, but I didn't know how much. When I first hacked into the government servers, there was a much tougher firewall around the info about it, but there was mention of a 'foreign army' invading only to be repelled by another 'foreign army', in a battle that took place in the city. It doesn't take a genius like me to figure out that two giant robot armies were duking it out in the city."

"That is a fair point. I believe it would be obvious, though I will say it anyways. The Autobots defeated my small team badly. All but one was offlined from the Decepticon landing squad, while only one of the Autoscum was, and he was taken down by my hands personally."

The malice in Megatron's voice made Jo shiver uncomfortably. And though she didn't really know which Autobot was being referred to (she didn't know any, slaggit) there was an odd pull from the center of her chest, like a small bird flinching.

"However, none of this is necessary for you to know. If I could I wouldn't tell you anything but my Third seems to believe you would be more useful if you knew more. You were correct in your assumption that I ordered Frenzy with the organic hacker to gather intel on the Autobots. He was also assigned to that task because Glen was believed to be the best hacker on this planet."

"Believed..?" Jo echoed, picking up the past tense. Megatron kneaded his claws against the bridge of his nasal plating in an annoyed fashion.

"You hacked into the most heavily protected digital place on your planet in less than fifteen of your Terran minutes, which even Frenzy cannot do. As much it disgusts me to admit it, it is entirely possible that you are just as smart as or even smarter than the brightest minds on this rust pool of a planet. You may even be able to match a Cybertronian sparkling. There is no reason for you to be acting so Pit-forsaken obstinate about it! From what I have observed about your pathetic race, you should be either doing your best to ignore this fact in favor of using hallucinogens or performing mating rituals, or making sure everyone would know that you are better than them!" Megatron began losing his temper, thinking erratically about many more things than his original topic. "What makes you superior to all the other humans? Are there others like you to oppose a rule of Decepticons?"

There were a few moments of silence before Jo answered, though not in the way Megatron wanted. "Why are you fighting?" The Decepticon warlord frowned a moment, then smirked.

"The ages have erased the answer to that from the CPUs of most of the participants. It is possible that the only two Cybertronians aware of the true reason are I and my traitorous brother, Optimus Prime. In the end, the reason is this: We are the evil, while the Autobots are the good. My mechs and I revel in the pain of the pathetic Autobots, and even you inferior humans that accompany them at times. We are more than likely comparable to what some of the Terran myths are of the 'Devil'; superior in all ways and very dangerous. We started the war simply to extinguish everything there was that represented those that would come to be known as the Autobots; The pure, the good, and the pacifists." The looks of cruel glee that Megatron gave Jo almost made the human step back. It practically screamed, '_fear me, be scared, be terrified! You are not welcome here but for to be a pet, one we shall frighten and abuse!'_ It scared her, and Megatron relished that as he went on. "Perhaps there is no reason for fighting. For all you know, my race could have been fighting longer than I have been alive. The truth still remains though, we are a race with much bloodlust, at least on the Decepticon side, and forgetting that would be… hazardous, for your health."

Jo sat back down, mulling over the answer she had gotten. Parts made sense, of course. But even with her lack of logic when compared to, well, anyone, she knew something wasn't clicking. It was like someone was telling her a memory, but corrupting it. Knowing that it was possible that it would get her smooshed, she said what she knew was right.

"You're lying."

"Human say what?"

It was all Jo could do not to break down laughing. She took a moment to compose herself before elaborating. "Well, it's not like you actually consider yourselves evil. Nobody really considers what they're doing _wrong_, not in the beginning. Your methods are the thing that's bad; obviously you don't fight _for _violence, just _with_ it." Getting back up again, restless, Jo removed a tennis ball from her pocket (Primus knows how it got there) and began bouncing it up and down against the surface of the warlord's desk. The _thok-thok-thok_ wore on Megatron's nerves, and he considered ruining his desk just for the sake of getting rid of her, when she started speaking again. "To tell the truth? Yeah, you do scare me a little. And I don't think you a _good_ guy. I'd hafta have a glitch the size of Cybertron _and_ its moons not to. But you're also cool. And I like it here. So I plan on staying for a while, thanks, especially because I can't go home to my family, thanks to your psychotic seeker."

Megatron was mildly impressed. The organic spoke her mind without fear, and pointed out the flawed logic of his explanation. She hadn't even objected to the comment that humans were inferior to Cybertronians, instead seeming to make a silent promise to show him how that was wrong. "And so you aren't frightened of me?"

"Not really!" she replied brightly. "I respect you deeply, and acknowledge that you could either kill me with one pinky or torture me into oblivion, but no, I'm not as scared of you as most. I mean, as soon as I came here you became my boss, so I give you respect and fear you an eensy bit, but, for me, that's about it!"

This time Megatron really did do a double take. "And what would your logic be behind this?"

"Logic?" Jo muttered, confused for the first time, as if she hadn't considered that an option. "I don't really go well with logic. And there wouldn't be behind this anyways. We humans have something called instinct, it's what happens when your gut is screaming at you what to do. For a human, usually, it's primal an' people don't like it. But for me, it's a lot more controlled, an' I, uh…" Her voice dwindled off as she tried to regain her train of thought. Megatron noticed her voice had began to gain an odd accent, beginning only slightly but growing as she went on.

"Oh, yea'. Sor', I got off track. When mos' humans would have th' instinct ta run away screamin' bloody murder, Ah feel like this is th' onl' thin' Ah shoul' do. 'S like sum'in' tha's call'd 'Déjà vu'; where ya think sumthin's happen'd b'fore t' ya but yeh can' qui' remember. Tha's- Oh, slaggit, sorry Mr. Megsie." As soon as Jo broke off and restarted her sentence the accent disappeared, but not before Megatron could place it as a mix of what humans termed 'Cajun' and 'ghetto'. "Slipped up, my bad. Anyways, yeah. That's why. I can't explain it but I'm comfortable here. Ish. But that's about it!"

_Strange… No human, no, _being_, has had the courage to speak like this one for vorns upon vorns,_ The tyrant thought, steepling his clawed fingers. _There is only one other I have met like her, and she died by my own hands… Disgusting as it is to think, it is… understandable that Frenzy would think of this piece of organic filth almost Cybertronian… _A sudden thought then occurred to Megatron.

"Why you to spout the English translation of our Cybertronian curses, organic?" He asked, more curiosity than wrath in his voice now.

Again puzzlement flashed across Jo's face. "Well, er, that one's actually hard to explain. I don't like human curses, and one day I got real torqued at this one kid who was insulting a friend, and, well, thusly I swear."

In an attempt to save himself from the processor ache that was now flaring up as a result of talking to the human, Megatron commed Soundwave with permission to come in. The door hissed open immediately – Soundwave had been waiting just outside, monitoring the conversation with interest – and the telepath glided over to the desk. Jo wasn't done pounding the mech's logic into the ground, though. When Soundwave was still about ten feet away, the human jumped the gap, and scrambled up his form before perching on his shoulder cannon. Then she threw the tennis ball she had so it landed in Megatron's hands.

Megatron groaned and threw the ball away, placing his helm in his hands and waving them out. His parting growl made Soundwave slip slightly, and he nearly stumbled.

"Human. Get as much recharge as you can. You will be assigned duties tomorrow and they begin at 06.00 local time. If you fail you will be terminated. See that that does not happen… Jo."

It was all Soundwave could do to prevent himself from fritzing out. _Chaos reigns this human's mind_, he thought as he carried her down the hall. _And it seems to follow her around nicely. Primus help us!_

* * *

Twenty-eight days. That's all. Twenty-eight days, two hours, six minutes, three seconds. That was the exact time since he had been brought back from the dead. If you subtracted roughly five hours, you'd get the amount of time that had passed since he had started wondering. Wondering if she would've liked this planet, would she have enjoyed the books and music and, of course, art. Wondering why he hadn't felt her when he was tied slightly to the Matrix. Wondering how he could live but she couldn't.

'He' was Jazz, a saboteur and the third in command of the Autobot Army. He was also a member of the original five Autobots to land on Earth and, because of a deep-seated grudge, had died at the hands of the head Decepti-scum, Megatron. In retrospect, it probably wasn't such a good idea to taunt the leader of the Decepticons when he's dangling you by your pede-leg joint, especially when he's double your height and quadruple your strength.

Jazz selected a song from one of his extensive playlists and ran it, sighing. Now he was on this train of thought again, the one that brought him perilously close to remembering vividly the pain that he had felt right before he woke up in the medbay, the pain of being ripped in half. Not a particularly fun experience, really. But it didn't last long whenever he remembered it. One sec, he was goading Megatron into a fight, there was a terrible pain around his mid-chassis, and then he was fine and being tackled by Bumblebee.

Jazz sighed and turned up the 'volume' of the music in his head as he thought back to the clip that Prime had let him see, the one that showed how he had been brought back from his limbo between the Matrix and life.

_(flashback)_

_"Two months! It only took five Earth solar-cycles to repair the body but he _still _isn't back! Argh!"_

_The screen is black and white, and the normally chartreuse mech displayed is grumbling incoherently, suiting the mood. _

_A human female, disproportionately small next to the robot that was pacing next to the table she was on, speaks up. "Bumblebee said it was like Jazz is in a coma. I don't know what that means for you guys, but for a human, a coma just needs time. Isn't that like, the same?" Ratchet shakes his head in frustration._

"_Stasis is the appropriate term," he corrects in a gravelly English accent. "But even in stasis, a Cybertronian should have a spark-pulse. I don't expect you to know everything yet about the Cybertronian medical field, Mikalea, as I've just started tutoring you, but in all respects, Jazz is what a human would call, 'brain dead'."_

_Mikalea covers her mouth, worry flickering across her face. "R-Ratchet… If Jazz is like _that_… Then why are we bothering? Isn't… Isn't brain dead, like, _forever_ dead?"_

_"Normally, yes, that would be the case," Ratchet answers, concentrating with a frown. "But the pattern of death is much different for a Cybertronian than it is for a human. Because we are made of a different basic structure, a kind of electricity as opposed to fire like humans, there are different variables. Most times, a spark is extinguish, and the consciousness of a mech or femme is returned to the Matrix, which is like the human version of 'Heaven' or 'Nirvana' or whatever your extensive list of religions may call it. There is a physical representation of the Matrix, which the Prime is in possession of. Only Optimus was deemed worthy of thousands of other mechs and femmes, to be able to protect both the living and the dead. Now, you see, the reason we still have hope, is because a spark sometimes does not go to the Matrix, and is instead side tracked to other places. In one instance, there is reincarnation, a phenomenon known to happen to humans as well. The spark is reborn without stopping at the Matrix, usually immediately, otherwise thousands of your years later. In this case, the Spark can be sensed by the Prime while in 'limbo' or after reincarnation. This is very rare but there have been roughly a dozen instances of this I am aware of. The other option, even rarer, is 'suspended death'. I have only witnessed three cases of this, all during the war. The mechs were literally, killed, with no spark, but after a week or so of human time, about a day in Cybertronian terms, they came back. Once it was Optimus himself, after a foolhardy mech named HotRod tried to be a hero and got him shot. Another time it was Megatron, and yet another time, it was a mech named Mirage. During those times, Optimus could neither sense them in limbo nor in the Matrix. And, when they came back, it was first nothing, and then, after an orn, they were there again. As Jazz is neither here nor there, is should be assumed that he is in 'Suspended Death'." The long explanation ends, and Ratchet looks even more upset, having explained what he knows to be true._

_"Is it possible that Jazz was reincarnated, as a human?" asks Mikalea. Ratchet shakes his head gruffly._

_"As I said, Optimus should be able to sense Jazz even then. As he cannot, we both firmly believe Jazz has the possibility to return."_

_"So, what? Do we just wait?"_

_"I-I don't know. That is what is so frustrating, Mikalea! For all the medical knowledge I have, everything on Earth and more importantly, Cybertron, there is no true protocol on this subject, but to wait." Ratchet scowls at a sheet-covered figure to the side on another table, as if it was the figure's fault this was happening. The mech doesn't notice the human's expression, one of furious thought._

"_Ratchet," she says suddenly, and the mech comes over to listen to his ward. "You said there's no rule for this, right? So that means anything is worth trying. What about this…"_

_Both human and robot dissolve into a quiet conversation, planning a new procedure to try._

_(Time lapse en video 5 hours)_

_The sheet has been taken off the figure to the side, revealing a tiny (in comparison, of course) light grey mech lying prone on the table. His optics are offline and even through the slightly grainy quality of the video, there is a noticeable welding scar winding jaggedly around the midsection of the chassis._

_Four mechs were standing anxiously around the table. One was Ratchet, holding the human that appeared earlier. There was an imposing black mech next to him, fiddling with a cannon on his arm. Next was a smaller mech, light grey on the film, with doorwings fluttering on his back. Another human was on his shoulder. Last, a tall mech, dark colored with flames, stood regally before the table and the group._

_The tallest one begins to speak, but is cut off by the black one. "D'ya mind tellin' us what we're doin' in yer room o' doom, Ratch'?" he asks in a gruff Texan accent. Mikalea jumps down onto Ratchet's hand and is placed on the table next to the body._

"_Well, 'Hide, Ratch' 'splained earlier about what's going on here with Jazz. Apparently, his spark's stuck somewhere between the 'Matrix' and his body, right? Well, like Ratchet and I told Optimus earlier, we might have a better way to bring him back rather than waiting!" She says excitedly, and pulls a couple of long jumper-cables from where they're attached at her hip. She begins fiddling with them anxiously as Ratchet continues._

"_You see, Ironhide, Mikalea came up with the theory that if we create a physical bridge between the Matrix and Jazz's spark chamber, it may be possible to, with a jolt, dislodge his spark from 'limbo', and either let him return to the living plane, or at the least, allow him rest in the Matrix."_

"_An' yeh agree wit' this, Prahm?" Ironhide demands of the tallest mech, who sighs._

"_Yes, Ironhide, or else I wouldn't have come here with the intention of doing this procedure, nor would I have asked Bumblebee to come as well. It is our best chance to bring Jazz back, and if we succeed, there will be that much more medical knowledge for us to use in the future."_

_The human on the shortest mech's shoulder raises his hand sheepishly. A smile twitching on his faceplates, Optimus motions for him to talk._

"_Ah, yeah. So, what are you gonna, ya know, do?"_

"_Over the past few hours, Ratchet and me've been hooking up all the power in the base but security to this switch," Mikalea says, motioning to a large, dangerous looking switch close by. "We're gonna hook up these jumper cables to the Matrix and then to Jazz's spark chamber. When that's good and ready, we'll hook the power up too, and then throw the switch. If we're lucky, Jazz'll come back online."_

"_And if we aren't?" Sam asks, slightly afraid. Mikalea looks away before answering._

"_Eeh, the electricity arcs around the room like a lightning storm and we humans get burned to a bad-smelling crisp."_

_Sam flinches, and his guardian looks fairly nauseated. A sound-byte comes from his speakers. "-What're the odds?-" _

"_Roughly 48.7786 to 51.2214 in favor of the less appealing choice," Ratchet replies. "Of course, there is a chance that even if there is not an electrical storm as a result, Jazz still won't come back online."_

"_I'm willing to take the chance," says Mikalea. "What about you guys?"_

_Optimus nods resignedly and Ironhide mutters something about 'suicidal humans'. Quickly the makeshift med-bay becomes a flurry of activity. Within minutes everything was set for the procedure._

_Optimus carefully clipped the free ends of the jumper cables to a strange, box-like object located below his spark chamber. A flash of blue light at the contact left the humans covering their eyes momentarily._

"_This will sound quite awkward, but, this is an extremely odd sensation." Optimus says, embarrassment barely tinging his voice. The youngest three beings in the room have to stifle their laughter. Ironhide glares at them and they look away, whistling._

_Ratchet quirks an eye ridge and stalks over to the powerswitch. "When all are ready," he says gravely._

_Optimus looks around the room, his gave stopping briefly on Sam, who is held protectively in Bumblebee's oversized grip, and on Mikaela, who is checking the linkages on the power lines. She steps away and nods at the leader, eyes full of hope. "Go on, Ratchet," Optimus says, also hoping for the best._

_With a set face, Ratchet jerks the switch down with a _clunk_. A spark flies brightly at the connection at the switch, searing through the dark. Almost just as instantly the links in the prone form spit small bolts of lightning dangerously. The human next to the form flinches away and nearly falls off the table before Ratchet catches her. Optimus is doubled over, leaning on the table, though whether from pain or concentration it is impossible to tell. Sparks of electricity that keep arcing about the room prevent anyone from seeing the spark monitor – only the security camera has the vantage to see the spark-line go from flat, to sputtering, then flat again, then sputter up, in that Ababa pattern._

_Within about five minutes the electrical buzzing was becoming too much, and Ratchet, Mikaela still cupped protectively in his hand, ducks over to the switch and returned the flow of energy in the building to normal. The lights in the room come back on, and all of the mechs assembled in the room look anxiously at Jazz's body. Sparks still dance across his chassis, and the shifting light makes it impossible to tell if there is any movement. After a moment, though, the spark monitor reboots, with sound attached. The noise made all the beings in the room (save for Bumblebee, who is doing his best not to bounce too much with excitement) dies down to silence. The faint bleeping of the spark monitor grows stronger, even when Optimus detaches the jumper cables from his person. A minute passes, and then another, the beating growing steadier and steadier, louder and louder._

_Ratchet tentatively places Mikaela in Bumblebee's grasp along with Sam, before tentatively approaching the table where Jazz's form lay. A few scans reveal that what the monitors are saying is true; Now a spark is resting in the spark-chamber, and all CPU-processes are booting up. Ratchet relays as much to the other Autobots._

"_That is indeed great news," Optimus says, slightly shaky. "However, how are we to know that this is really Jazz? I can sense him, but as we both know, it is possible that is just wishful thinking."_

_The medic opens his metallic mouth to respond, but is cut off by Bumblebee, who streaks in front of him to stand eagerly next to the berth. All the other mechs in the room begin to reprimand him, but Bumblebee ignores them and starts up a clip. A rooster crows out of his speakers and slightly vintage music begins playing._

"_Good morning good morning  
good morning good morning  
good morning, a_

Nothing to do to save his life  
call his wife in  
Nothing say but what a day  
how's your boy been  
Nothing to do, it's up to you  
I've got noting to say but it's O.K.

Good morning good morning  
good morning a"

_By the time the second verse starts playing, Jazz is visibly twitching. The room watches quietly (except for Bumblebee, of course, who is playing the music himself) as slowly, Jazz comes back online, bit by bit._

_The last chorus of the song plays just as Jazz groans and sits up, wearing an expression half-way between pain and playfulness. Mikaela and Sam, who had been placed on the floor already, gasp quietly, the girl grinning widely that her plan worked. Bumblebee looks ecstatic, and even Ironhide seems happy at the return of his (much younger) friend._

_Jazz looks around at the room bemusedly before returning his gaze to Bumblebee. "Th' Beatles, 'Bee? I din't peg ya t' be th' sen'amen'al type, li'l buddeh." Then, he let out a slightly pained squeak as he was tackled back on the berth by the very happy youngling. "Aah! Help! Ah'm gonna be kill'd agen!"_

_(End Flashback)_

Jazz smirked at the memory and the footage itself. It had been a great present, of sorts, to come out of death right to his best friends' face. Being glomped kinda hurt, but that was either the inevitable result of being _dead_ for two months, or because somewhere along the line, Bumblebee had gotten, like, four feet and two-hundred pounds bigger. Jazz blamed Ratchet's special Energon.

But it was weird, getting back to the original topic. Jazz hadn't missed her in a while, not since a little before landing on Earth. Bumblebee felt the same; the scout had said it was because she would've liked it on Earth so much. Jazz wasn't sure about that, since almost being in the Matrix should've made him able to sense her again, but it didn't.

"Mph. Ah don' wan' go there now. 's too nice ou' t'day," Jazz mumbled, rolling over in the grass outside the base. He selected a song with a bass so loud it shook the windows, and for a couple more hours, banished all dark thoughts to the back of his CPU.

**

* * *

**

**Music is Good Morning Good Morning by the Beatles, of course!**

**Lets see, if I got my German right...**

**Herr Unwissend = 'Mister Ignorant'**

******Wirrwarr=Chaos/Confusion**

So, hey. Sorry, that was longer than I intended for an upate, but I don't have enough money to actually buy Windows Office, so I'm writing only at school, and my files got erased, so instead of editing the next couple of chapters, I'll need to re-write them completely. It shouldn't be too hard, but there will be a wait -.-;; sorry. Do you guys like how Blitzy and Sounds turned out? I tried to keep them in character; giving Blitzwing's "personalities" names was just a random thing, do you like 'em? Meh, even if you don't, I'll still keep them, heh.

Thanks for the reviews, IknowPPLonCRACK and StarSwoop! I love reviews. I'll always do my best to say thanks :) I'm glad you like the fic, and Jo. It was hard to keep her from being a Sue in this chapter, though. All of it was hard to write, really. Hope you like it! Oh, and whoever 'Chelsea' is, thanks for giving me my first flame! Rude, but I can deal; I feel like a real fanfic writer now, lol. Yes, I'm a tf junkie, or else I wouldn't be writing this :)

Please review! I'll give you an energon-goodie! Flames are used to burn my crappy rough drafts .

ADW

* * *


	4. Labrynth

**Hwee! Vunduba! I got chapter three finished! I know that it's late, but, well... I think my computer may be _possessed_ again, let's just leave it at that. Hopes you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: This chapter makes no sense. If I owned Transformers, don't you think my writing kills would be better?**

**Deja-Vu**

**Chapter 3 – Labyrinth**

* * *

Soundwave and Jo arrived at a small door not far from the Command Center. Well, small in comparison to the other doors they had passed. It was still humongous compared to Jo, who was still chattering away on his shoulder, and didn't notice when the mech she was on stopped in front of it and entered a short pass-code. She did notice, however, when the door slid open.

"This is a fragging closet!" She exclaimed, obviously unhappy. "I know I'm a human, but seriously? A supply closet?"

The telepath winced at the shrill noise so close to his audial receptors and reached up to grab the irritated human, but she proved too nimble and hopped up onto the top of his head.

"Joanne: Desist climbing and return to the ground," he ordered, but Jo was not interested in listening. "You know that symbol you guys got? Yeah. Your head looks like it. Are you the mascot or something?" Soundwave sighed at the tease and shook his head forward quickly enough for Jo to fall off into his waiting hands.

"I am obliged to inform you that if you fail to heed my orders tomorrow, Joanne, I will be ordered to exterminate you. As Frenzy seems to have developed a liking for you, your death would more than likely impede his performance, and that would not be desired, as Megatron would then order his torture or death. Understand?"

The expression of fear and slight revulsion on Jo's face made clear her answer, and she was quiet as Soundwave placed her on the ground. No promises after that, however.

"That's scrapped," Jo cursed softly as she turned towards the closet. "Why would anyone be a Decepticon if th' threat is death? 'Course, I ain't doin' much better at th' mo'…" She trailed off as she noticed her belongings on the floor, by a stack of crates larger than her. Soundwave almost wanted to hear more of what the femmling had to say, but, as he remembered, he still needed to debrief Blitzwing. With a quick telepathic message to Frenzy and Rumble to watch Jo, Soundwave left her to examine her limited possessions.

Most of the bags seemed to have not been rummaged through, Jo noticed straightaway. "Tha's good. Means they din't take m' danj'rus stuff. Or m' food. Speakin' o' food…" Jo trailed off again as she dived for the box she had grabbed last. She wrenched the lid off to reveal a survival kit, instant ramen, and various army rations. Selecting an MRE with Chinese food on the front, Jo set the cooking supplies up to warm the food. Then she turned to examine her 'quarters'.

"Eh, Ah guess i's go' enough room," she muttered, glancing up at the piles of boxes. The one closest to her had slats of some sort on the side. "Perfect fer han'holes," With that thought, Jo scrambled up the side nimbly, and used the vantage point to survey her small domain. There were a few other towers of crates, and some odd looking machinery, but for the most part, the closet was barren. The purple metal floor and walls were oppressing, and no windows were to be seen. In fact, the only lighting in the room was from a strange, moderately glowing panel on the ceiling.

A slight hissing sound from the now boiling packet on the floor reminded Jo of her food, and her growling stomach. She jumped down, and was just starting to eat the prepared MRE, when Frenzy came in the closet with another 'con about his size.

"Hey, Frenze! Who's your friend?" Jo said through a mouth full of noodles. Frenzy was about to respond when the red cassetticon butted in.

"Heh, I'm surprised ya don't know who I am, sweet-cheeks," he said cockily. Frenzy slapped his spindly hands over his head. "I'm Rumble, just the hottest Cybertronian this side of Primus! What's your name, gorgeous?"

Jo stuck out her tongue, pretending to gag. "Interspecies flirting! Ew!" A devilish smirk crossed her face as she stuck a piece of chicken in her mouth. "I'm Autobot Head-Muncher. Nice to meetcha, Rumb's."

Both Cassetticons reset their optics quickly, and backed away slowly from the still eating human, who was trying not to choke on her food with laughter. "A-a-are you-ou s-s-seri-eriou-ous?" Frenzy stuttered, worried that he had made a fatal mistake when observing her.

Jo burst out laughing loudly, unable to stifle it (She has poor self control. Can you tell?) and Frenzy realized that she had been teasing them. He pinged Rumble that, and the red brother's optics narrowed, annoyed. He snatched the MRE container from Jo's hands, scanning it warily.

"What's this fuel supposed to be, anyways? Reconstituted poultry flesh, saline compounds, wires of an organic glue… Is this really supposed to be a nutritional substance?"

Jo grabbed the food back, scowling. "Dude, if I could drink pure energy for life, I would. But that would kill me, and this stuff tastes good. Bugger off."

Frenzy sighed with a twitch as his brother and Jo kept squabbling over food, then moved on to something about females. Humans seemed more complicated than he initially thought.

-----------**Somewhere in Nevada**---------

The large door squeaked slightly as it slid open, revealing a tired Jazz. He immediately walked over to his berth and flopped down on it, making the soft material covering the metal nearly blow out. The saboteur glared at the small digital clock across from him, as if it had scorned him. The screen innocently displayed the time; it was only seven forty-eight, but it felt like midnight. Jazz rolled onto his back and resumed his glaring, now at the ceiling.

The Decepticons had attacked again. Maybe it wasn't as bad as it could be; no-one was dead, and only three humans were injured, and minimal damage had been done to property. That didn't stop Jazz from being angry and pretty dang worried. The 'cons had abducted a kid. Glenn had called right after the news had come in; apparently, he was tight with the girl, and thought it was his fault she was snatched. Prowl told the hacker it probably was. Jazz kicked him for being insensitive. Optimus scolded the both of them. Jazz knew he shouldn't have 'assaulted' his superior, but, honestly, Prowler was being a prick. A youngling got kidnapped, and was probably terrified because she was surrounded by hostile giant robots, and all the 2iC could say was that it was an unfortunate casualty, all because of Glenn. _And _Jazz had to be online for a mission debriefing at four in the fragging morning the next day.

Groaning, Jazz turned on his stereo system, and tried to drift into recharge and get a decent amount. Knowing the events of the day, the next mission would be Pit…

-----------**The Nemesis**----------

Jo let out a sigh of relief as the door to the closet closed. She was tired and Rumble got on her nerves. Frenzy tried to help, but… Well, the red brother had absolutely no reason to fear anything when he pulled out some pile-driver-thingies. Now the walls were dented and Jo's half-eaten MRE was smashed on the floor.

The human stretched and hopped off of the makeshift bed she had set up using a sleeping bag and some foam stuff. She was just getting changed into some pajamas when the full force of the day hit her.

"Primus," she muttered, almost falling over. "Ah've been 'bducted by gian' alien robo's who're threatenin' t' kill me. M'family's been _attack'd_. M'house's been _d'stroyed_. Why idn't dis botherin' me?"

Jo was still puzzling that out as she climbed back up the crate and crawled into her sleeping bag. A million thoughts had been going through her head since everything had started, true, but the most affected she had been was when Starscream had blown up her house. Jo hiccupped a bit, hoping her parents and sister were okay, before thinking, again, about how nothing felt… strange about the day. It's not as if stuff like this happened everyday, and yet, that's what it felt like to her. This big purple spaceship, home to an _insane_ number of hostile robot aliens (from what she had heard) felt more like home in the first _hour_ than her home had felt all her life.

_But that doesn't mean I can sleep in tomorrow, _Jo mused, curling up. _Well, I can, but I like living. Need to get to sleep…_

-------**Dream-------**

_The prank of the vorn! Or at least, the quartex. That's what it's supposed to be. Only, my brother's late. He's always late to everything. Can't blame him though; that's our motto! Not "be late", but "fashionably late". Well, either way, it's been a few breems and I wanna get going, or else Red's gonna get all fritzy again 'cuz he can't see us on camera._

"'_**Sup, sis? Wha's th' prank dis time?" **__My bro pops up over the edge of the pipeline I'm sittin' on, doing his best not to scratch his silver paintjob (my blue coloring's already scrapped, unfortunately) and I do my best to look disappointed with him._

"_**Yo' late, bro." **__He just laughs._

"_**Yeah, yeah, yeh know wha' we say-"**_

_I cut him off, waving a hand. __**"Do it wif style or don' bothe' doin' it, an' tha' includes arrivin' fash'nibly late, Ah know. Bu' we're off camera an' Red's gonna get Prowler-"**_

"_**Who's gonna cop a fit. Got it. So, wha's th' plan?"**_

_I gesture flamboyantly at a pile of scrap metal and medical tubing. I can tell, beneath his visor, he's skeptical._

"_**Art supplies? How're we gonna get better'n th' Twins 'f we're jus' throwin' confetti a' bots?"**_

_Smirking, I pick up a piece of scrap, and fold it into a 'v' shape. Then, using some of the tubing I had already tied into a ring, I launch it at him. The rubbery material flings the piece of metal pretty fast, and upon impact, leaves a nick in his paintjob._

"_**Ow!"**_

"_**Da's th' point! It hur's enough t' make yeh jump, an' leave a scratch, bu' i's no' enough t' make yeh go t' Ratchet!"**_

"_**Wi'sh 's goo', cuz he's still piss'd a' us."**_

"_**Cuz 'Bee was followin' us through th' ven's?"**_

"_**Yeah, bu' i's no' like we tol' him t' go int' the intake area. Ah'm jus' glad he di'nt ge' too hur'."**_

"_**Bu' 'f we ha'nt been dere, he'da bleed ou'. 'Course, 's still our faul' he was dere, bu' dat can' be help'd."**_

_Suddenly, I get pelted with one of my little ammo thingies, and I jump a bit off the pipe. They really do hurt! I glare at my twin. __**" Wha' wasat fo'?"**_

"_**Yo' makin' me feel all d'press'd. Now, tell m' wha' we're doin' fo' dis prank, an' we c'n ge' start'd!" **__He smirked widely, and I can't help but do the same. I grab some more ammo and start folding it, explaining at the same time._

"_**M'kay. Dese li'l guys 're th' 'seekers', cuz dey're th' same shape 'n stuff. We launch'em at th' nex' mech t' walk by an' leave 'em scratched up, an' boom, Sunny an' Sides ain't th' bes' ambush prank'ers anymore."**_

_My silver twin looks at me expectantly, knowing I'm not finished. __**"An' who's th' nex' mech walkin' by?"**_

"_**It may or may no' be a high ranker. Ah mean, we **_**are**_** in th' Prime's hall, ain't we?" **__The smirk across my face is just like his, I can tell, and he starts folding the metal scraps as well._

"_**Same bet as usual? E'rybody bu' th' specials're two poin's, Dad 'n Pops 're five anti-poin's, 'Hide's ten poin's, Ratch's twen'y poin's an' Prowler's a hun'red poin's?"**_

"_**Eh, acshully…" **__I say, pausing to think. __**"Ah think Ratch's gonna hafta be off limi's. Cuz he's still torqued b'yon' b'lief. An' Ah like livin'."**_

_He nods, and crouches down into a predator's position. __**"Go' i', sis. Le's ambush th' slagga'!!!"**_

_We were laying on the pipe for what felt like a vorn and a half (though it was really probably only half-a-cycle) and getting pretty restless, when I hear loud footsteps echoing down the hall. I hold my hand up, signaling for my bro to wait, and then I hear the mech right under us, so…_

"_**Chaaarrgggeeeee!!!!!"**_

_Needless to say, we can't really see who we're shooting at, but we are definitely shooting. It's really fun, and my pump's working really fast, and me and my bro aren't even bothering to speak out loud, we're just jabbering along our spark-bond, and the seekers are flying like plasma shots, and then, well, we're out of ammo._

_And we see who we were shooting at._

_He's big, red and white, and torqued._

_Aww, fraggin' Pit!__ My bro cusses over our bond. I look over at him as the mech begins shaking with anger._

"_**Ah, Jazz?"**_

"_**Yeah?"**_

"_**RUUUNNNNN!!!!!!"**_

_Thankfully, we're down the hall and out of sight before Ratchet yells his now-trademark "__**TWINS!"**__ and chases after us, and we're both laughin' and thinkin' we should have checked who it was first……_

-------**Another Dream-------**

_The world is falling down around us. It must be. That's the only explanation for the screams and gunshots I hear right now, for the fact our Tower is shaking, and that Mom and Pops are gone. It's really scary. I mean, Beat and I were due for our upgrades today, cuz we're old enough to be younglings, but then Mom turned on the vid and saw these big guys with purple marks attacking the walls outside the city and got scared. Me and my little sis stayed in our room, playing around with our toybots - the ones that turn from vehicle to bipedal mode when you push a button, ya know – until Pops came in and told us to get in the main structure area. Until then we hadn't noticed the explosions and stuff (we thought it was from the vid Mom had on) but the vid was off and the explosions were getting louder. And now…_

"_**Hey, Jazz?" **__I look down at my blue twin, and I can see lube leakin' out from under her visor, and reflected in her visor, I can see the same thing on my face. We had been crying, but come on! We're only sparklings, and the world is going to Pit…_

"_**Yeah, Beat?"**_

_She sniffles a little; some lube got into her intakes and is making her hiccup. __**"Dose're th' 'Cons Mom tol' us 'bout, ain' they? Day're 'tackin' Kalis." **__I frown, then look out the window at the smoke and metal fumes covering the sky that had been such a pretty purple only a few cycles before._

"_**Yeah."**_

_We both shriek and grab each other then, cuz the Tower shook really bad just then, and there's this big explosion, and then there's some screaming from down below._

"_**Holy Primus…" **__I whisper, as if the 'Cons can hear us. _

_They just blew up the bottom of the tower!!!__ Beat exclaims through our twin bond, her not-voice tinged with terror. I nod at her, trying to be the 'responsible big brother' Mom and Dad always tell me to be. But another explosion wracks the Tower just then, and I bury my head in Beat's shoulder, cuz I figure, we're only five breems apart. And I'm scared, slaggit!_

_After a couple breems we look up, figurin' its over an' we're cool, cuz the war sounds are gone, and the Tower isn't movin' anymore. We can't feel our creators, but that's ok, since they cut off when they're busy usually. Beat wipes some lube off of her faceplates. _

"_**Sorr' Jazz," **__Beat mumbles, smiling a little. I cuff her on the back of her head._

"_**Bou' wha', sis? We're onl' sparklin's."**_

"_**S'possed t' ge' our upgrades t' younglin' t'day." **__She mumbles dejectedly. I wave it off; we're both cranky cuz we're hungry. And all this of course, but that takes second fiddle t' food._

"_**An' wha', tha' makes us grown up? Psh. Ah like m' right t' freak ou', thanks."**_

_Beat giggles and nods, already cheering up. She looks over to the window from where we're sitting, but all I can see is ash. 'Course, Beat's always been more a visual spark, so maybe she can see somthin' I don'…_

"_**Th' battle's movin' away. Y'think we c'n call 'Shaft 'n 'Set now?" **_

_From the sounds of it, Beat's right, so I loll over the edge of the sitting area, more relaxed. __**"Ah don' see why no'. Mom'n'Pop said no' t' till th' end o' th' battle, bu' it's gone now, so we're good." **_

_My blue twin nods happily, and we bump our helms together like usual before we call Mom and Pop. I focus on my spark, and I feel all calm and stuff like usual, and then there's Beat flyin' around this li'l spark-place, and we goof off fer a klik b'fore getting in contact with the creators. But then a far-off explosion nabs our attention, and we get back on track._

_Feeling towards the back of our sparks, we open up this little 'door' in our bond, to where our creators' sparks are. The bonds opened slowly, love and concern from our creators leakin' through…_

_And then me an' Beat were writhin' on the floor, our sparks feelin' like they had been tore apart, an' it feels like we been beaten or somethin', and jus' thinkin' '_Primusmakeitstop!_' I kinda could feel Jetset and Crankshaft, our creators, waving sorrow and concern and love and stuff over the bond but I was more aware of Beat, who was curled into a tiny ball, pressed into my side, whimpering, and me, who was doing my best not to break my vocalizers holding in my yells._

_But the… everything just… stops. The pain goes away, and Beat and I sit up, a little dazed, but ok. But when we feel out over our bond…. It's gone. There's nothin' there but a hole. Even when Mom an' Pop blocked us out, we could still feel them, but now… it was like a part of our sparks was tore out. I started to cry a little; some of Pop's charges from the sparkling center had told us about this feelin' before._

"_**Th-they're g-gone, ain' they?" **__Beat stutters, fresh lube trickling out from under her visor as her intakes hiccupped. I nod, mouth components quivering a little._

"_**Tha's why they din't wan' us contactin' dem," **__I mumble, listening to the sounds of battle that are fading away. I hear something like a mech calling for retreat before I continue. __**"So's if dey go' hur', it woul'nt hur' us…" **_

_Beats lookin' over at a holo on the wall, a pic from a vorn or so ago, when Pops took us to play with our new wheels on an ore-hill. A frown flies across her face, and I feel a bunch of thoughts randomly flyin' around her head, but they're too… squiggly, and I can't hear them right._

"_**Watchoo thinkin', sis?" **__I ask, my voice surprisingly calm. I mean, our creators just died, shouldn't we be more upset and stuff?_

_She looks over at me, thoughtful. I almost laugh at the expression. Almost._

"_**Well, ya know wha' Jetset always said, right?" **_

_I nod. __**"Yeah. 'If action is needed, do what you gotta do. Only then, if you're done, can you chill out, too.' Why?"**_

"_**Ah don' think they woulda wanted us t' jus' lay aroun'. Ah mean, this Tower's 'ficcialy dang'rous. It's movin' aroun' an' stuff, ya know? If we're still in here an' th' Tower falls, Mom an' Pop willa' died fo' nothin', an' we'll be dead too, an' that'll suck an' stuff, so, ya' know what we gotta do?"**_

_I shake my head for a fraction of a klik, before thinkin' of what Pops had drilled inta our CPUs. "_If you're ever in trouble, find an Autobot, the guys with the red marks. They'll keep you safe," _he would say, an' then I knew what Beat meant, and was all proud of her for thinkin' it up by herself. __**"Th' Autobo's, righ'?"**_

_Beat nods, then dashes into our room, leaving me alone for a klik. I'm still scared cuz everythin's so slagged up (__Don' cuss, Jazz! __Beat says over the bond, I reply with a real rude gesture, and we both laugh) bu' it was cool. Me an' Beat, it's jus' wha' we do. Go wit' da flow. An' as twisted as it was, this whole thing seemed kinda… fun? I sigh, grinning. My spark hurt and I was miserable, but I was waaay happy, too. _

_Pit, we're gonna be so screwed up when we're older. __I blip, amused. Beat comes out of our room, nodding. __But at leas' we'll have fun doin' i'!_

_With flair, Beat plops a box on the floor, which shakes real scarily. After a klik of balancin' so's we didn't fall, we sit down and I look in th' box, like it's our spark-orn. _

_Inside's some scrap, an' it don't look liike much, but Beat looks and feels real happy about it, so I try to look interested abou' it. __**"Sooo… Wha' is i', sis? Ah mean, scrap's coo', bu', ya'know…"**__ Beat smirks, holdin' in a laugh._

"_**Ah pu' scrap on top t' keep Crankshaf' from takin' th' ac'shul stuff," **__she says, proudly. With a flick of her hand, the scrap flies everywhere. I realize it's her art scrap, an' it really was coverin' up somthin' cool – li'l weapony things!_

_I pull ou' th' piece that had m' glyphs scratched on it. It's kinda heavy, and not exactly made fer th' Prime, bu' it feels good t' hol' anyways. Beat's grabbin' some kinda blade lookin' things, bu' I'm not really payin' attention._

_Ya like i', bro? Ah made it m'self!__ She beams widely, seeming to forget everything that's happened so far. She gets like this all th' time when it comes to her art 'n stuff._

_Wha' is i', Bea'? Kin'a looks like a slingshot…_

_Beat reaches over an' puts a sharp… pointy… thingie, into th' fron' of th' d'vice. Then she pushes it so's it ain' aimin' at an'thin' impor'nt, and pushes a button I hadn't seen. The thingie flies out super fast with a click, and lodges in th' wall, with enough force t' make th' buildin' quiver._

"_**Whoa."**_

"_**Yeah,"**__ Beat says smugly. __**"Issa li'l ca'pault. Ah go' th' d'sign from one o' th' hist'ry pads a' th' sparklin' center. 'Sno' like it'll take down a grown-up, bu' 'f we hi' a minicon 'r a cassette 'r a drone, it'll keep yeh safe."**_

_I look at the li'l daggers she's holdin'. __**"An' why don' yeh have a gun too?"**_

"_**Ah can' aim f'slag, yeh know tha'. No t'menshin, th**__'__** gun ain' worth halfa credit fo' close combat. Tha's why. We'll balance ou', go' i?" **_

_I nod, bein' all thoughtful an' stuff. __We'll b' fine, sis. We don' gotta worry bou' anyone. We ain' gonna b' seen coz we're so small!_

_Tha's th' prob'm. We're tiny. Tha's why we need th' protec'shin._

_Without another word, Beat gets up an' wobbles to th' door. I notice th' floor's movin' pretty bad, so when I go over, it's hard not t' fall. Beat's hand, not a claw like mine, it's on th' keypad, bu' i's all shaky. I pu' my claw on her shoulder-join', bu' don' say anythin'. I know words can' do much, so's I don'. My blue double nods, and th' door swishes open. There's smoke everywhere, bu' we go ou' anyways, our balance getting' better._

"_**Y'ready t' go, Jazz?"**__ Beat asks, more happy then Ah know she is._

"_**Le's roll, sis!"**_

_An' we're ou' th' door, terrifies bu' havin' th' time of our shor' li'l lives…_

-------**Another Dream-------**

_Fire is everywhere._

_Buildings are falling down around me._

_Who am I?_

_I dunno._

_I wanna kill… Kill everyone! All the Autobots! All the Decepticons! Every-_

_There's a scream. Well, lots of screams, but I can hear this one more. Like it's in my spark!_

_AAAAAAAARRRRRGHHH!!!!!!!!!_

_Pain splits me in half, and I don' know who I am still bu' I don' wanna kill no more, I jus' gotta help'em an' then I'm runnin' to th' soun' and suddenly it's tha' guy who looks just like me an' he's been shot in half in his arm his arm's bleedin' real bad an' somecon's standin' over him but I can _remember_ he's my twin an' I jus' jump on an' I kill th' con bu' I don' even know how cuz one second I'm here an' then he's dead an' I remember more an' I know I've done a lot of bad stuff an' I gotta make it up an' everythin's insane but I know I just gotta kill th' guy who did it an' nothin' makes any sense an'-_

_Waaah!!!!!_

**-----End Dreams-----**

Jo sat bolt upright, gasping for air. The night's dreams had started out alright; the prank dream had been around for as long as she could remember, and always happened the same way, even though she couldn't ever remember and names. The strange thing was this time, everyone was robots… and it seemed more natural than ever. No, the part that left Jo gasping for air was the second dream… The one that was pure confusion and terror.

The human hopped down from the perch that her sleeping bag had been on, her footy pajamas making her skid slightly upon landing. The disaster area of the night before had been cleaned, and Jo wondered just how they had been so quiet. Shrugging it off in an attempt to feel less… disturbed… by the dream, Jo walked softly over to her bag and began making some breakfast, not noticing the ridiculously early time – Four in the morning.

-----------**Somewhere in Nevada**---------

Jazz onlined groggily, frustrated at the ridiculously small amount of recharge he was able to get during the night. It didn't help that the memory replay that had ran was of one of his earliest – and worst – memories. With a dramatic sigh, Jazz swung agilely out of berth, landing right next to the door and nearly smacking his helm on the wall.

"Primus help m'," he muttered, storming out to the meeting room, "If Prowl gives m' a har' time t'day, Ah'ma knockin' 'im back t' Cybertron, no matter wha' Prime says."

* * *

**So, yeah. I have a tendency to write out accents phonetically, so if what Jazz, Jo, Frenzy or the rest are saying, doesn't quite make sense, just leave a review and I'll do my best to fix it in upcoming chapters!**

**And, er, of course there is the fact that this chapter makes little-to-little sense. I was going for a rather confused feeling, but I think this just came out... blech. What do you guys think?**

**Reveiw please! 15 internets per reveiwer, I swear!**


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